The Golden Key (15 page)

The latch rattled as she put her hand on it. She was free this hour, free the rest of the day. She supposed she could go to one of the family galerrias and study the works of her ancestors, supposed she could go out of doors into one of the courtyards, or even into the cobbled zocalo that bound all the guild quarters together,
but she did not wish it. She would instead go into her tiny room and think over what had occurred, and what it meant for the future.

And so she went in, aware of a painful loneliness, and found Sario there.

“Matra Dolcha!” She slammed the door shut at once and leaned against it, as if to keep out anyone who might discover them together. “What are you doing here?”

He stood in the corner near the hinges—a slight, thin-faced boy—so the open door would hide him should anyone else inhabit the corridor. But the door was closed now, and Sario safe; he left the corner and came out into the cell, fidgeting, pulling threads from the hemming of the pocket of his tunic. “What did they say?” he asked.

She was shocked to see him, but shock wore off and was replaced by relief; she could share with him now what was required of her. “We are denied one another’s company for a year.”

Color faded. “They can’t
do
that!”

“Oh, Sario, of course they can.” Depressed, Saavedra sat down on her narrow cot. “They have the ordering of our lives from birth to death—they can do whatever they wish. And
will
do it, if they find you here.” She eyed his nervousness; it was unlike him to seem so tentative. “Did they speak to you?”

“Not yet.” A lock of hair obscured his eyes; he shook it back impatiently. “They will, but they don’t know where I am. They can’t come get me if they don’t know where I am.”

“But they will,” she countered reasonably; he never saw beyond what he so badly wanted to see. “If you are nowhere else, they will look for you here.”

He swore beneath his breath. “Then I will say what I’ve come to say.” He reached into his pocket and tugged forth a folded paper. “I’ve written it down. Here.”

She took the proffered paper, unfolded it, flattened it, examined it. “What is it?”

“A recipe,” he said tautly.

“A
recipe
?” Had he gone entirely mad?

“Tomaz told it to me.”

She frowned. “But—for what? These ingredients make no sense. They are not for cooking, nor are they for paints.”

“They do make sense,” he said steadily, “if you have read far enough in the
Folio.
”

She nearly crumpled the paper. “Sario, I’m not permitted to read the
Folio.
”

“But I have. Some of it.” He sat down next to her on the edge of the cot, leaning close to indicate the words scribbled hastily on the tattered paper. “These are nonsense words meant to mislead anyone who should come across them. But I know the secret to them. Tomaz told me how it was done, and this is the recipe.”

She was still at a loss. “I don’t understand, Sario. Why are you showing this to me?”

He inhaled quickly, noisily, then let the words come too rapidly for sense. “Because—because I want someone to know. I
need
you to know, ‘Vedra, before I begin.”

“Begin?” she asked suspiciously. “Sario, what are you up to now?”

His face was drawn, tense. Even though he clasped his hands tightly, she saw the minute trembling. “I must do something, ‘Vedra. I have to. Tomaz was made to be a victim because he never understood what the
Peintraddo Chieva
was—until it was too late.”

Neither did she. “But you do.”

“I do. Now. And so I must do this—”

“Sario—”

“—to keep them from killing me.”

“
Killing
you! Sario—are you mad? Who would wish to kill you? Why?”

“Neosso Irrado,” he whispered.

“Oh, no … this is mad, Sario—”

“That is what they call me. Neosso Irrado.”

Saavedra managed a laugh, albeit weakly framed. “Because you are frustrating, Sario. You break rules, talk back, question everything, refuse to do what you are asked—”

“Just like Tomaz.”

It drove her into silence. Saavedra stared at the paper, at the list of nonsense words, trying to understand the cause of Sario’s fear. And fear it was; but augmented by a peculiar determination. He would do it. Whatever it was, he would do it. She knew of no one as willing as he to risk a very real danger.

“What is it?” she asked sharply. “What is the
Peintraddo Chieva
but a self-portrait?”

Sario’s mouth jerked briefly. “A means of control,” he answered. “A
secret
means. What we saw, you and I, above the Crechetta.”

Saavedra remembered all too vividly what they had seen above the Crechetta.

“Punishment,” he said tautly, “for troubling them. For improper compordotta. For being—Neosso Irrado.”

“Oh, no—”

“Tomaz was Neosso Irrado.”

It seemed an obvious answer. “Then don’t
you
be!” she cried.

His face was pinched. “I can’t stop, ‘Vedra. I can’t help myself.”

“You can! Just
stop.
Don’t talk back, don’t question everything, don’t break rules, accept the compordotta—”

“Don’t you see? When it doesn’t make sense, what they ask; or when I see another way, a
better
way, I have to tell them! I can’t ignore what is obvious to me, even if no one else sees it … it would be dishonest. It would dishonor my talent. You know that! You
know
that!”

She knew that. She had felt it herself.

“They will blind me,” he said, “as they blinded Tomaz. They will cripple my talent as they crippled his hands.”

She had seen it done. “Sario—”

“I have to do this, don’t you see?—so I may prevent them. Tomaz told me the way, though he couldn’t realize it.” He hitched a thin shoulder. “He told me how he painted his self-portrait, the ingredients he used … but he painted in ignorance. I will not.”

Her mouth was dry. “How, Sario? How can you prevent the Viehos Fratos from doing whatever they wish to do?”

“By outwitting them,” he said. “I am young yet, too young, but surely they will test me soon. Surely they will discover that my seed is infertile, and then they will know; it is only the final proof, ‘Vedra … everything else is known. It lives here, in my soul.” He touched his breast. “You know I am Gifted.”

“Yes,” she said rustily. “I have always known.”

“And thus I am at risk. I must be what I am meant to be, because it lives inside me—but they wish to control it. And that is how they used the
Peintraddo Chieva.
”

Her breath ran shallow. “What is altered in the self-portrait is visited on the body.”

“Yes.”

She had seen it. Had watched them do it, the Viehos Fratos in the private Crechetta: carefully, meticulously, with surpassing skill they had painted the portrait blind, crippled—and so did Tomaz become. Sario had injured the painting—and so had Tomaz become.

“Matra,” she whispered, pressing a trembling hand against her lips. “Matra ei Filho …”

“I will paint them their painting,” he told her. “I will do as they tell me to do. I will give them a
Peintraddo Chieva
—but it will not be the first one. It will not be the only one. It will not be the
real
one. That, I will keep. That, I will lock away. And only you, and only I, shall know the truth of it.”

  SEVEN  

Meya
Suerta was a city of many faces, of many hearts. Which face one saw, which heart one touched, was determined by such predictable things as birth, as craft, as gift, as beauty—and certainly as wealth. But the true soul of the city lay in its
un
predictability, and the turgid flow of lifeblood within its people; even within those born elsewhere, strangers to Tira Virte, save they lived in her now, died, and were buried in her soil, blessed in their passing by the Matra ei Filho.

The old man did not wish to die in Tira Virte; did not wish to be buried in her soil; did not wish to be blessed by the Mother or Her Son. His own God was male, whose seed was plentiful, and whose sons were many. And the grace of whom the old man knew he claimed; his God was not so fickle as to deny blessings to the unborn or the newly born, the children who were taken before adulthood. He understood much about Tira Virte, and little. For all he had lived in her lands, in her cities—and now in the city itself—for half of his long life, Meya Suerta was a stranger to him in all the ways that counted.

Not cruel, save in that she could not understand what he was. Not angry, in that she punished him. And neither was she indifferent; he earned a decent wage. But she was not Tza’ab Rih.

But in truth, what was? Tza’ab Rih as he had known it was fallen, brought down by a series of calamitous events engendered, he supposed, by what some undoubtedly termed the follies of a religious madman; but to this man here, this aged man, such opinions were the follies, and nothing short of blasphemy.

How could no one see it? These lands had belonged to Tza’ab Rih. No one of any wit at all could fault a realm for wishing to keep what it once had, nor for trying to recover what had been lost over time, when incursions from others—from those who began to call themselves Tira Virteians for the bounty of their green land—were subtle, when incursions were viewed as nothing more than a family wishing to make a living, to shape a life.

But too many had come. Too many had settled. Too many lives were not of Tza’ab Rih. They spoke of the Mother and the Son in place of Acuyib, and so the Diviner, the Most Holy, the Lord of the
Golden Wind, had sought wisdom from the
Kita’ab
, in whose pages the words of the God Acuyib—the only God who mattered—were written.

The old man had seen it. The
Kita’ab
—or its remains. His eyes had been blessed to witness what was revered within his land: the pages of carefully-scribed text bordered and illuminated most extravagantly, with stunning skill, by those who served the Diviner, who in turn served Acuyib.

And Acuyib had said, within the pages of sacred text, that Tza’ab Rih was most blessed of all lands within his dominion, and that it was for his chosen to safeguard its bounties, its peoples, its vast array of the faithful contained within its borders.

Its
borders.

Thus did the Diviner of the Golden Wind assemble his most select, and train them, and sanctify them in Acuyib’s Holy Name, and title them Riders of the Golden Wind, and send them out to reclaim the old borders that others had encroached.

Thus did war begin.

Thus did the
end
begin.

The old man sighed. So many years ago. So many prayers ago. So many deaths ago. And so his Tza’ab Rih was fallen, and now he made his home in the capital city of the victor-by-proxy, many years removed: Baltran do’Verrada, whose ancestors had broken the Diviner’s Riders, his city, his heart; and, by employing such devoted and devastatingly effective warriors as Verro Grijalva, destroyed the
Kita’ab.

He refused to live as Tira Virteians lived. Once, yes, he had; in Tza’ab Rih many of the folk built homes of brick and lived within them, but when the Riders were assembled, luxuries were forbidden until such a time as lost lands were recovered. And so the warriors had caused tents to be made, and learned to live without such roots as others knew: it was wiser, the Diviner said, to ride the Golden Wind than to anchor oneself forever on one small patch of land while others, lacking theirs, left what had been home to live within the cities.

And so they rode the Golden Wind. Horseback, always moving; sleeping in the saddle or in wind-billowed tents.

He had no horse now, and no saddle. But he did own a tent. And he made one small patch of the land now called Tira Virte his own Tza’ab Rih.

Within the tent, the small tent, an old warrior smiled. Then slowly, creakily, abased himself and prayed.

Though others, in the aftermath of calamity—requiring explanation
for what was inexplicable—claimed Acuyib a weak God for permitting so much death, and the Diviner a madman, the old Tza’ab was serene. There was reason in all things; one could not question Acuyib and remain faithful. One simply believed, and served.