The Hidden Queen (28 page)

There was a flicker in him, something that kept plucking at the edges of Anghara’s Sight—a vision she could not quite pin down. She thanked him and entered, and it was only as he dropped the curtain back into place behind her, severing their physical contact, that she realized just what it was she had sensed. A pale flame, silvery-blue. A thin aura around the burnished hair. He had it. He had the gift himself.

The realization confounded her just enough to make her stop in her tracks for the barest instant, blinking at the implications—here, even more so than in Roisinan, the
sen’en’thari,
those gifted with Sight, were predominantly women.
Sen’thar
men were rarer than water in Kheldrin. And here was one with the unmistakable aura of the gift, not in the
sen’thar
ranks but serving as usher to Al’haria’s lord…But she suddenly remembered where she was, and her eyes focused on the figure of al’Jezraal, his hair lightening to gold with the passage of the years, but still supple and erect as any youth, waiting just a few paces away. She swallowed convulsively, realizing just where she was and what she was doing, not sure if ai’Jihaar would approve of this intrusion into al’Jezraal’s private quarters, alone, at this hour—but it was done. She gave him an obeisance, every bit as deep as the one she had offered in the desert two years before, and he returned it gravely.

“Welcome to Al’haria, at last,” al’Jezraal said. If he had been surprised by her appearance, he did not show it. There was respect in his mien, but not deference—she may have been a queen, but she was an exiled queen, and if he was only a lord of a desert city it was also true that she was in that city right now, and under his authority. He looked upon her as an equal—and Anghara, Queen of Roisinan, had taken enough measure of this man to take that as a compliment. “I was expecting to see you a little later this morning, though, in the hall.” There was a soft question there, couched, in ai’Jihaar’s own subtle way, in a rather obvious statement of undisputed fact.

“So you shall, my lord,” Anghara said, answering it. “But
an’sen’en’thari
can see you at any time—so ai’Jihaar told me.”

“That is correct,” he said, unable to hide a small smile. “I suppose that for you my part of the Confirmation ceremony is indeed little more than just that—a formality to put an official seal to something concluded long ago. Will you sit, Anghara? I have to start preparing soon for the Confirmation, but there is still time. Will you tell me why you have come?”

“Do you recall the story ai’Jihaar and I had to tell when we emerged from Khar’i’id?” said Anghara without any further preamble, after she had settled into the proffered cushions and waited for al’Jezraal to subside with a cat-like grace next to her.

“It would be a hard tale to forget,” murmured al’Jezraal.

“Then you will remember that all I brought away with me from Gul Qara at that time was the sea-scent in the wind, and the memory of a whispered word.”

His gaze sharpening, al’Jezraal nodded silently. He had passed what remained of Gul Qara not long after Anghara had left it, and it had already been difficult to believe it had ever been anything but a wretched ruin. If anything had been salvaged out of that…

“What you do not know,
Sa’id,
” Anghara continued, more softly, “is that it did not end there. There have been…dreams, one on the very night that you and your companions left us in the hai’r. Another, on the first anniversary of that night at Gul Qara. A third, last night…and it was two years ago today that our paths first crossed in Shod Hai’r.”

His eyes glinted, “Yes, ai’Jihaar has told me something of this.” And then, as she hesitated again, he performed one of those feats which had gained him his reputation as a mind reader. “She is at the temple,” he said, “making her own preparations for the ceremonies. Shall I have her summoned?”

And Anghara, looking up into the golden eyes of ai’Jihaar’s brother, suddenly found all her doubts falling away from her. While ai’Jihaar had taught her what she could, her work was done; Anghara had, indeed, run to her teacher for help in that first instant—but it had been her own understanding which had interpreted this dream. Anghara squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, finally sure of herself and of her vision—sure enough to take responsibility herself, for the first time, for her own decisions in this, her adopted land. “No,” she said. “It isn’t necessary. I come to you as one of the
an’sen’en’thari
of your House, al’Jezraal ma’Hariff, with a true dream. I dreamed of the voice of Gul Qara, and at last it spoke to me clearly. There is a new oracle in Kheldrin, waiting only for a word of power to be found, to be born; a sister oracle to vanished Gul Qara—a place near the ocean, a place which is called…or will be called…Gul Khaima. It lives,
Sa’id
al’Jezraal, Lord of Al’haria. Gul Qara is dead. Gul Khaima lives.”

“Change follows in your wake, Anghara of Sheriha’drin,” al’Jezraal said, after a moment of charged silence. “Gul Qara had been silent to our own invocations for centuries, yet it responded to you freely when you reached out to touch it—and then it crumbled. There have been some who held the fall of Gul Qara against you, despite the oracle’s passing of its last vision into your keeping. And now—now you come with another gift of life where they would lay a death at your door.”

Anghara flushed, looking down for a moment, but the sting of Gul Qara had long been drawn. As to Gul Khaima…“There is a danger…” she said swiftly, glancing up at al’Jezraal’s face again, but he lifted a narrow hand to forestall her.

“Of course there is. You were right to bring this to me first. We will seek this place; but I think that its finding is your task. For now it is as well that its existence is not more widely known. Not yet. There would have been those who would have gone seeking, as an adventure, and even if only one of them had gone for the wrong reasons it would have been one too many. After the Confirmation, come back to these chambers. You, ai’Jihaar, ai’Farra…” he hesitated for a moment over that name—ai’Farra ma’Sayyed was Al’haria’s own
an’sen’thar,
Keeper of the Records, and a hard woman of whom ai’Jihaar had already warned Anghara. To put it mildly, ai’Farra had not been pleased at ai’Jihaar’s doings; if anyone could be counted on to object violently to Anghara’s status as
an’sen’thar,
even now at the last, it would be ai’Farra. It was just plain bad luck that this woman, a fanatical zealot of the old school, ruled this particular
sen’thar
tower. But she was here, and in Al’haria she held power; in some matters, more than the city’s lord himself—al’Jezraal squared his jaw and continued. “We will speak then of what needs to be done.”

It was a gentle dismissal, and Anghara rose to her feet. “I will be here,
Sa’id.
” Even as she turned to leave, her hand strayed to the
say’yin
she wore around her neck and she was abruptly transported to the desert oasis where it had been bestowed.
“Sa’id,”
she said softly, “Lord, you gave this once as a pledge…today you will redeem it, as you promised. The
say’yin
that you lent…”

“Is yours, Anghara,” he said. “You named yourself
an’sen’thar
of my House; I accept your vision, as coming to Al’haria, and to clan Hariff. In token of that, the pledge of the
say’yin
remains between us. And here, in Kheldrin, if you will bear it I will give you my clan’s name.”

“I will bring it honor,” Anghara said, her eyes unaccountably filling with tears.

“Sen’en Dayr,”
said Sa’id al’Jezraal, Lord of Al’haria.
Gods willing.
“Until we meet again, then, Anghara ma’Hariff.”

As he held the curtain for her to pass al’Tamar’s eyes were shining; he had heard most of their last exchange, and it looked as though he approved.

“It is well,” he said to Anghara with a bow. “You need kinsfolk here, and in the desert you need a name that is of the desert. The Hariff will be proud you have chosen theirs.
Sa’id
Al’haria, and now two
an’sen’en’thari! Hai!
They will be proud!” A sudden glint of triumph tinged with a hint of gloating touched that pride in his eyes—he was Kheldrini, after all, and rivalries were everything. “But ai’Farra will not be happy!”

Already ai’Jihaar had spoken to Anghara of these age-old feuds and squabbles between the Kheldrin clans—and new ones were springing up almost every day. Anghara had just set the Hariff against the Sayyed—subtly enough, with no more than a few words spoken in the spirit of the occasion—and for a moment she felt a pang of uncertainty. Was she doing the right thing, involving herself as directly as this?
Sen’en’thari
were traditionally neutral, clanless, although in practice it was hardly ever thus—but in practice none of them could help being of the clan in which they had been born. As a solitary stranger, Anghara had been more exposed than she would have wanted, despite ai’Jihaar’s standing—but now she had become a part of an extended “family” which would be expected to rally behind its newest member, despite her strangeness, at the first sign of any slight or attack. And there could be any number of those, simply because of that strangeness. A whole new hornet’s nest of trouble could be stirred up. But it was done, and al’Tamar at least thought it was a good idea. For now, that would have to do.

The Confirmation was now imminent, and Anghara hurried back to the
sen’thar
tower to look for ai’Jihaar—it was custom for the confirmation candidates to enter the temple and, later, the Great Hall together with the senior
sen’thar
who had raised them to their new status. She found ai’Jihaar waiting patiently in Anghara’s own room. Once again ai’Jihaar did not ask where Anghara had been; she seemed, with that unnerving facility of hers, to already know exactly what had passed. All except for the dream itself. This Anghara related to her as ai’Jihaar helped her prepare herself—taming her unruly hair, finding the correct sandals—and ai’Jihaar listened in silence, merely nodding at the end.

“You did the right thing,” was all she said, and it was no longer delivered as teacher to pupil, but rather as one
an’sen’thar,
albeit a senior one, to a younger colleague. She no longer gave lessons, only advice. From today, from the moment al’Jezraal repeated in the hearing of his people the words he had first uttered in the silence of a desert hai’r, Anghara would become, for all of her inexperience and youth, ai’Jihaar’s fully fledged equal.

But before the hall, before al’Jezraal and the people, there would be the temple, there would be the gathered
sen’en’thari
…and their Gods. And there would be ai’Farra.

Running delicate fingers over Anghara’s face and hair as a final check, ai’Jihaar reached to pull the golden cowl over the younger girl’s head.

“You are ready,” she pronounced. “Come, child of my heart. There are four who serve for the first time today—two whites and a gray of ai’Farra’s, and you. Come; they will be waiting at the temple. It is time.”

The temple was a great ziggurat in the center of Al’haria, its stone a shade redder than the rest of the city, as though in acknowledgment of all the blood that had been spilled here before Kheldrin’s Gods. It had been built to house thousands with ease; the few
sen’en’thari
who now walked its corridors could, if they had wanted, stake their claims to entire suites of rooms—and they could have done so even had every single
sen’thar
in Kheldrin been living here. But they weren’t—this was the largest
sen’thar
tower in the land, but still it held less than half the professed
sen’en’thari
—just under a hundred whites, a handful of grays, two (now three, if one counted Anghara) golds.

All of these were gathered on the flat, open roof of the ziggurat that morning, waiting for the Confirmation Service. There was room enough for half the city to be present as well, and frequently the people did attend, especially if they had a special interest in the offered sacrifices. But those were ordinary services. This one was one of confirmation, new hands taking up the burdens of ministry and sacrifice, new minds offered to the Gods. This service was between the Gods and their initiates; some mysteries were not for profane eyes.

Two white-robed girls and the one clad in gray, who were all being accepted into their respective circles, waited with ai’Farra on the broad landing at the top of the staircase. A stone doorway opened onto the roof; quick glimpses of the hushed, monochromatic gathering of cowled figures dressed in white and gray could be seen on the pyramid top, which was paved in huge slabs of pale stone. But ai’Farra’s back was to the doorway, and her eyes, hot and brooding, watched as ai’Jihaar and Anghara ascended the last few steps to join the Keeper of Records and her clutch of new initiates upon the landing.

When ai’Farra opened her mouth to speak, ai’Jihaar lifted a hand.

“The sun moves, ai’Farra. Let us begin.”

Biting back whatever it was she had been about to say, ai’Farra flicked her eyes over Anghara like a lash—her features melted into what might have been a smile, but it was not a pleasant smile. It was as though she was anticipating something dreadful, and glorying in it.

“Very well,” she said. “Let us begin.”

They walked out together, side by side, the two women of Kheldrin robed in gold. Behind them, cowled and muffled, came their candidates for this Confirmation Service. Around them was silence; the roof was not walled or fenced in any way, and beyond the ranks of the assembled
sen’en’thari
it simply dropped away into a chasm at whose foot lay the city. The early morning sun poured across the rooftop, except where a carved altar-stone stood in the shadow of a small squat structure, a windowless cube about the height of a man. As the only human-sized thing in this entire building, it looked small and insignificant. It was as if its entire purpose was devoted to reminding the worshippers just how they compared to the Gods they had come to venerate. There was a door in this building, facing the altar; a gray-robed
sen’thar
stood beside it, belted with a massive silver girdle bearing a long stabbing dagger with a dull black handle, a large key in her hand.