Carousel Seas (28 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

AERONYMOUS HOUSE

IN SEMPEKI, THE LAND OF THE FLOWERS

Silence shattered around me.

The first thing I heard was the nerve-wracking jangle of merrybells.

The first thing I tasted was honeyed air.

I opened my eyes . . .

. . . and beheld the mighty silver gate that had guarded the estate of Aeronymous, blasted and burned, hanging crazily by one hinge. The blackened metal was sagging and torn, twisted in a half-melted knot around the Great Wave, the sign of our House.

Beyond the ruined gate, and down a wide courtyard, Aeronymous House stood, to all senses, unharmed. To the right of the house, the gardens bloomed plentifully. To the left was a table of rock, falling sharply away. The back wall overlooked sheer cliff, and the sea.

House Aeronymous is—was—aligned with the sea. Back home in the Changing Land, that would’ve meant that the House owned trade ships, and fisher fleets.

Here in the Land of the Flowers, it meant that those of the House have a certain inborn affinity for water. All Sempeki Houses are aligned with a Sempeki element. One of my grandfather’s great cronies, Ozali Eredith, had been aligned with stone. Mr. Ignat’, so he’d let slip, came from a House aligned with fire.

Ramendysis . . . had been aligned with the storm winds.

Which probably explained . . . everything.

Tears started to my eyes. I swallowed, and realized that I was still gripping Cael’s hand.

I turned to look at him, and saw that his face was wet.

“You’d been here before,” I said, my voice raspy with the tears I refused to shed.

“Yes,” he agreed, and took a hard breath. “And I was here when the Gate was fashioned. Souls were bound into it, and the life-forces of our most ferocious hounds.
Jikinap
from every one of the House, and every one of the village, too. No power should have been able to destroy that Gate, my lady. And yet . . .”

And yet, it had been destroyed; the first defense of the House, charred and bent and broken; the power bound into it consumed by the enemy of the House; increasing the strength that he brought against us.

“It did well,” I said, maybe trying to comfort him. “No one and nothing could have withstood Ozali Ramendysis by the time he came to us.”

“I ask that you tell me the tale,” he said, his fingers warm around mine. “When you may.”

Because Cael had been in prison when Aeronymous House had fallen. It occurred to me to be grateful for that.

“I’ll gladly tell you the history, to the extent that I know it myself,” I told him. “But first, let’s do what we came to do.”

“Yes,” he said, and stepped past the blasted gate, whereupon he turned right, toward the gardens.

He was still holding my hand, and I made no attempt to pull away. It was comforting in this place, to have that living contact.

Just about then, it occurred to me that Borgan probably wouldn’t rate this excursion as
safe
.

* * *

“My liege.”

Aleun was precisely as I remembered her: wiry and brown, leaf-green hair tousled into elf-locks around her ears. Her face was sharp and her eyes were a shade lighter than her hair.

She bowed with great deliberation.

“Gardener,” I said, with what poor dignity I could muster. “I am come at the word of Cael the Wolf, to release you, if that is your desire, from the duty to which you have been bound.”

“No one wishes to be compelled, my lady; especially when one would gladly serve, for love.”

“Will you stay with the garden then, bound or free?”

“Made free to choose, and free to act, I would remain with the garden, my lady. My love and my sustenance lies with these plants, which your grandsire knew. His binding profaned my service.” Her mouth tightened. “Your pardon, Lady. The old lord was a hard man; it wasn’t in him, to believe in any ties save those he built and set into place.”

That was all true, and if our places had been reversed and I had the saying of it, I wouldn’t have been nearly so kind. However, it was Aleun’s right to set the bar of courtesy wherever it seemed right to her, she being the wronged party.

“My grandfather was not a gentle man,” I agreed—which might win understatement of the year, if I remembered to enter the contest. “As little as it may be, I propose to return choice to you. Also, I offer my apology, that this should have been forced upon you, and your service tainted by it.”

“You had no hand in this, Lady. Return me fully to myself, and you will have done all you might, and shown yourself a fair liege, and true.”

She extended a brown hand, her eyes piercing mine. I met and held that gaze, at last releasing Cael, so that I might take Aleun’s wiry member between my two palms, as if I were about to perform a healing.

I took one breath, and another, and opened my eyes into Side-Sight.

The binding was immediately obvious—a simple thing, though brutal in its simplicity. Grandfather Aeronymous had merely driven thick ropes of
jikinap
through the woman’s heart, burying them in the living soil of the garden. If she had tried to leave, she would have very quickly been in pain. If she had persevered, the ropes would have torn her living heart asunder.

There was no healing needed here, only release.

No sooner had I made my judgment than power flowed, cool and potent in my veins. I thought about shears—and the binding parted,
jikinap
melting into the soil, to the benefit, I hoped, of the garden.

“Ah!” cried Aleun.

Her eyes lost focus; her hand softened. I held her as green healing flowed through me, to her.

Only a moment passed before she smiled, strength returning to her hand. She closed her eyes and opened them, her lashes wet, and her cheeks, too.

I released her.

Aleun sighed, and stepped away from me. She bent over to pluck one of the blue-and-gold flowers from the bed she had been tending—and bowed, offering it to me across the palms of her two hands, as if it were a blade.

“Thank you, my lady.”

* * *

Tioli stood like a wraith in the mist that rose from the waves crashing below.

It was cold here on the wall, in the mist, the footing uncertain and the wind ungiving. I shivered, but if the lone sentinel experienced any discomfort at her post, she didn’t show it. Merely, she faced out to the sea, her posture alert; scanning, I supposed, for enemies.

Having led me this far, Cael now put his back against the wall, and called ahead.

“Tioli, it is Cael. I have brought our Lady Aeronymous.”

“The Lady Aeronymous may approach,” came the answer, as thin and chill as the voice of the wind itself.

Cael looked to me and nodded. Apparently, I was to go on alone.

Great.

I thrust the flower Aleun had given me into his hand.

“Keep that safe,” I snapped. His eyes widened, but I didn’t have time to wonder what it was I’d done
now
. I inched carefully past him, the wind making sport of my braid, and swirling in cunning little by-drafts that might send an unwary walker down to the far-below sea.

Finally, breathing hard, I came to the sentinel’s watch.

“My liege,” Tioli said.

I was close enough to touch her, yet I could scarcely hear her; her voice was as insubstantial as the mist. She did not turn her head nor offer me any courtesy such as Aleun had done.

“You come to me late,” she said, which might have been criticism, but there was no heat in her voice.

“The fault is mine,” I said. “I had thought all our House consumed by Ozali Ramendysis, and have only lately learned that you and Aleun survived.”

Her lips parted, and I heard a faint
huff-huff
that might have been laughter.

Well, at least she’d kept her sense of humor.

“I would release you,” I continued, doggedly, “if you wish it so.”

“Above all things, my lady, I wish release.”

“Then you shall have it.”

She did not raise her hand from the hilt of her weapon, nor yet did she look at me.

All right, then.

I extended my hand, meaning to lay it on her shoulder.

But my fingers passed right through her, ice immediately forming on each digit.

I withdrew. If she noticed my intrusion, she gave no sign.

“Tioli, are you—” My throat closed, and I thought, suddenly, that I knew what she’d found so amusing.

“Am I dead, my lady? Yes. Did Cael not tell you?”

“Cael said you were bound to the wall.”

“Why, and so I am, as you can see.”

I could indeed see, in Side-Sight—a heavy staple of
jikinap
driven as deeply into her heart and thin Sempeki soul, as into the thick wall at her back. Tioli herself was a shredding shadow, a patchwork thing animated only by the spill from the working that bound her.

“I beg you,” Tioli whispered, “finish what is begun. I will love you for it, as I never loved your grandsire.” Her lips drew back in a mirthless smile. “Though you will perhaps not find the love of the dead comforting.”

“Few enough love me. I’ll not refuse the gift, freely given,” I said, the glitter of
jikinap
all but blinding me, in Side-Sight.

With an effort, I focused, and once again deployed my will to bite into the binding.

There was a moment of resistance before the staple broke, and the heavy power rained down, and over, the wall.

Tioli—

Tioli shredded in the mocking wind, patchwork bits flowing over me and up, riding the restless air into the flawless Sempeki sky.

I heard a sharp
crack
. The wall shook beneath my feet.

Pebbles rained slowly down around me.

“Kate!” shouted Cael. “Quickly! The house is breaking!”

I ran, heedless of the slick underfoot, grabbed his outstretched hand—and we both ran.

The rain of pebbles and grit became a deluge. I raised my free hand in an effort to protect my eyes, and ran as I’ve never run in my life, Cael’s hand hot in mine, We had almost reached the turret—and who knew what kind of shape the steps would be in, if the steps still existed?—when the section of wall beneath our feet disintegrated into silver sand, and I knew in that moment that I was going to die here, like all the rest of my House—

The wind gusted hard, lifting us, up and beyond the destruction—and down, until it settled softly on our feet, inside the shadow of the melted gate.

“Thank you, my lady,” I heard Tioli say, and felt a cold, damp kiss pressed upon my hand.

Behind us, with a groan and a roar, Aeronymous House collapsed, sending clouds of silver sand high into the air.

* * *

“Are you all right?” I asked, some minutes later, after the worst of my own shaking had subsided.

Cael bowed. “Your wolf stands ready to serve, my lady.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Do you plan on doing this kind of thing often?”

He gazed at me somberly.

“As your liegeman, it is my duty to see your honor pure.”

“And you served my grandfather?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Well?”

“Perhaps not so well as I might have done, my lady. I swear to do better, for you.”

I stared at him. He didn’t avert his gaze, and after a minute I sighed and shook my head, wordless.

The pile of rubble that had been Aeronymous House was already melting back into the silver soil. At the rate it was going, by morning, the only thing that would mark the site would be the blasted gate, and the formal gardens.

“You’re completely fine?” I asked Cael. “I don’t want bravado; I want the truth.”

“I am able, my lady. Nor would I ever lie to you.”

Except, maybe, the occasional insignificant sin of omission, I thought, remembering Tioli’s ghost, stapled to the walls. I nodded.

“Please take us home.”

“Immediately, my lady.”

He handed me the blue-and-gold flower. I slid it behind my right ear, and felt the stem seat firmly. I extended my hand, and Cael received it, gently, and one might say, with reverence.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the feeling of being forcibly wrapped inside a thick, cold, soundproof blanket.

I waited somewhat longer.

Finally, I opened my eyes.

Cael shook his head; his face betraying unease.

“There is something—a disturbance. Say, rather, a turbulence. I cannot scent the path to your—to our—lands.” He took a breath and met my eyes. “Perhaps if we wait, and try again, when this storm wind has passed . . .”

“Let me see.”

“Yes.”

His grip on my hand tightened. There was a change in . . . pressure, as if a window had been opened in a slightly stuffy room.

“You will want to take the half step beyond, my lady,” Cael murmured.

I stepped Sideways, and was immediately assaulted by the turbulence he described—a hurricane wind, heavy with scents: cinnamon, hot stone, pine tar, kerosene . . .

Peaches.

“Fuck.” I shook myself fully back into Sempeki. “The wind is Ozali-made. Prince Aesgyr’s starting his move, whatever it is.”

“Are we caught here?” Cael asked. “Perhaps we might go to another of your allies . . .”

To Daknowyth, for instance?

No. No, if the prince intended to shift the connections between the Worlds, I might never find my way home again. We had to move, and we had to move
now
, back to the house on Dube Street, where Oscar and Breccia waited—