Aloren: The Estralony Cycle #1 (Young Adult Fairy Tale Retelling) by E. D. Ebeling - HTML preview

Thirty-Three

A few days went by.  I did little except sleep, eat, and suffer tonics and treatments from the medic.  Arin lay beside me, and we talked and fought.  Sometimes Andrei was in the bed opposite mine, asleep, or pretending.  He didn’t speak, didn’t look at me, but I liked having him there; and when everyone else was gone or sleeping I would slip from my bed and make sure it was him.

Sometimes all my brothers would come, and Floy, and they would crowd around my bed.  We would talk about Norembry, and the wide world outside, and I was scared it was all a good dream. 

One day I knew it for a dream, because a Simargh came into the tent after my brother Tem.  “Ackerly spoke with her people,” Tem said. He opened the door flap, and sun poured in a stream to where Calragen and Trid were standing and talking to Andrei.

The sunlight condensed at the foot of the cot and took the figure of a woman.  She rendered everything else so unreal that lines and edges faded before and behind her.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, thinking perhaps the sunlight had dazzled them. “This is a dream,” I said to Arin, who was sitting up in his bed beside mine.

“A dream?”  Arin blinked fuzzily.  “Maybe.” 

What seemed layers of wings, translucent, veined, feathered, were wrapped around her bright body like robes.  “I gave you a choice,” she said to Andrei.  “You didn’t much like it.”

He sat forward on his cot, looking ready to bolt.  She said to a dazed-looking Calragen, “You asked after the whole story?  I’ll tell my part.” 

Her voice shook my insides like a great bell.  At the sound of it memories came into my mind: the tiered bottom of the pool; the bright door behind the blue glass; the glowing soul. 

“He was used as a tool, and it was partly our fault.  You’re familiar with the legend of Calabren?  This is similar.  It begins with a djain that tricked a Simargh and and got her with child. 

“The Simargh carried her child to term––a boy––and we did our best to protect him.  But the djain are cunning and we feel always their malice, and as a precaution we took the boy’s soul and hid it.  And not too soon, because the boy was stolen by his djain father.

“We searched for the child but the djain guarded him too well.  We kept watch over the soul because we knew the djain was also searching––without the soul it could not turn the child.

“Only later, when it was too late, did we learn what happened.  In devising a way to steal the soul the djain conspired with a human woman.  Yelse, as she used to be called, was the Ravyir’s lover.  The man took a wife more suitable, and she rankled with hate and was bent on revenge.  She had saebeline blood and some small magic, and was the more irrational for it. 

“For the djain’s work Yelse needed a soulless child. Not the Simargh––the djain couldn’t risk it.  

“So she murdered the Ravinya, took her boy, and did not suffer him to know any kindness.  She had an urn crafted, the kind Virnrayan artisans use to bottle power.  She thought to put the Simargh soul, when she had got it, in the urn, and hide the urn in a secret-keeping broach. 

“She and the child journeyed to Lorlen, where we live.  The tortured boy had hidden his soul away, much the same as we had hidden ours.  With the djain’s help, Yelse cast a shroud of illusion about him.  We though he was our souless Simargh babe, stolen back. 

“Even the Simargh are vulnerable to djain craft.  We, who think ourselves wise. We should have hidden the soul in a safer place, should have waited a thousand more years for the Simargh boy to mature.

“Instead we gave the soul to the wrong boy.  Right away we knew our mistake. But a soul given is a soul kept until she is given by the keeper.  The keeper grew, and there was nothing we could do except watch.  The djain began to fulfill it’s half of the bargain: Yelse gained control of Norembry, and promised the soul, the Aebelavadar, to a country controlled by the djain.  She was given troops by this country, and planned to move against Lorila by means of Norembry and the Ombenelva.  I believe her objective was revenge––to end her bitter score when the bastard prince of Norembry conquered Lorila and killed the Ravyir, his real father.  In her madness she overlooked several details.  Norembry wasn’t so anxious to go to war, and she and her djain forgot that the soul couldn’t be taken without the boy’s permission. We shed light on the courses. He didn’t give permission.”

It was all silence for a while.  I opened my mouth. “Shed light on the courses?” It was just a dream, after all. Cruelly absurd in the way of dreams.  I could say what I wanted.  “Oh, that’ll make up for it, sure.”  Tem’s face had a terrible expression; he looked toward my hands and I buried them in my lap. 

“I don’t understand,” said the Simargh. 

Of course she didn’t understand.  “Partly your fault, you said. So where were you when my father died?” 

Arin hissed my name.  I ignored him.

“Where were you when they grabbed up them flowers like a bunch of idiots and I had to rip my spirit out?   When I spent years sunk in dirt and nastiness? And him.”  I pointed at Andrei.  “The hateful monster.  Where were you?  Did you see Nefer die?   Wille’s eyes? You’re as bad as a djain, watching your mess spread like a plague.”

My face was wet––I had never cried in a dream before. 

“We’re not so powerful as you want us to be,” she said.  “We can only give help to those who see us.” 

Having nothing more to say, she dissolved, and the light from outside brightened and fell across my legs.  Everyone else trickled through the door, except for Arin, who lay back down without looking in my direction. 

And Andrei, who’d got up from his cot.  He was holding his head as though it ached.  I asked him, “What happened to your eyes?”

“What?” He looked down at me.

“Your eyes are brown.  Why are they brown?”

“Why do you care?”  He walked out the tent.

I slipped from my cot and shambled after him.  I watched him throw together a bedroll and biscuits. 

Suddenly, instinctively, I knew I wasn’t dreaming.  My mouth went dry.

“Where’re you going?” I said.

“Hell if I know.”

“You can’t leave.”

“Watch me,” he said.

He began to walk toward the river.

“How did Trid wake you?” I called after him.  “When I was tied up, how did he wake you?”

“He hasn’t said.”

“Well, now you’re awake, you’ve an obligation.” 

He laughed at me.  “To do what?” 

I should have run after him.  Instead I said softly, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I thought it was a dream.” 

***

Floy found me stuffing salt pork into my old knickers.

“Where are you bound?” she said.  “With burns like that?”

Emry, Chief of the brigands, was standing beside her with a cloth full of green stuff.  She grew red in the face.  She was very young: too young to have been sentenced to death. 

“Have you ever,” said Floy, “seen a palendry bloom?”  It was an odd question.

“No,” I said.  “I don’t think they do.”

“I fancy they would look something like that aster.”

“If they bloomed.”

“Maybe they do, though. We ignore them most of the time.  And they do sprout by water––”

“Ye’re following him?” Emry said.  “Here.”  She held out the cloth.  I smelled palendries.  “Give him these. I don’t want to.  He frightens me and he’s dumb.  After I woke him I said to his friend, ‘Don’t let him out o’ bed for a week,’ and there he goes!  Like he’s made all of wood and bolts.  Maybe he is.  Idiot.”

“You were the one who woke him?” I said, taking the cloth. 

“Yes. Should I have?”

“How’d you do it?”

“Palendries.  And that big, warm flower was up his sleeve, so I put it back where I thought it ought to go.  And I and the nob got it all across because,” she said, bearing herself proudly, “Seacho and them got to do what I say now cause I’m Chief––”  Emry stopped in astonishment when I gathered her to my chest. 

“Thank you,” I said, and cried all over her neck. 

“Look at that,” said Floy.  “They’re both blubbing.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Sending you after him,” replied Floy, “is like rescuing a sinking ship with a sunken one.”

But Floy was just a pot girl, and I walked toward the river with my salt pork and palendries.

***

Andrei blundered along like a human, and though my feet hindered me I soon caught up with him. I hid behind trees and banks, and near the day’s end, watched him fall asleep beneath an apple tree. It was raining again.  He looked ill, almost as bad as before he’d woken, and I decided to replace his poultice. 

I mashed the palendries between my hands and pulled down his shirt. He grabbed my wrist––I almost wet my trousers.  A blade glinted, I dropped the stuff, and he sighed.

“Thought you were Max.”  He lay on his back, staring up at me. 

“You can’t cut a ghost.”  

“Been changing my poultices?”

“Obviously.” 

He turned on his side. “Why’d you bring me back?”

I got off my knees and squatted in front of him.  I was scared he was going to make a run for it.

“Answer.”

“I like to dance,” I said, and wiped my sticky hands on my shirt.

“Yes. You like to dance so much you brought me back.” 

“Did I ever hate you.”

He sat upright.  “I know.  Why’d you bring me back?” 

I took a couple deep breaths.  “What sort of imbecile would run a djain through with a dagger?”

“Me.”  He was angry now.  “Why the hell did you bring me back?  How did it feel?  Being tortured and tied to a stake half-naked?”  He stared stonily at the tree trunk.  “Let me try to reason it out for you,” he said.  “I thought my life was hell––so horrible I was proud of it.  But you took even that away from me with your sadness and your damn hands. You should have killed me.  I have nothing to stand on now, and I want to hurt you for it.” 

His face was wild.  I made to rise, but he shook his head.  “No.  Are you so dumb?  It must be obvious.  Why are you doing this? ”  He started to cry. “I know why you’re doing this.” I felt my ears burning up.

“Andrei––”

“Leave.”  He turned his back to me.

I closed my eyes.  I would go back to camp, back to my brothers.  They would ask me why I was so sad, tell me I had no business crying–– 

“No,” I said stubbornly.  “No.”  I put my hand in his muddy hair––his head was burning––and I kissed him on the mouth.  I pulled away a little, and his eyes didn’t look so dark as his face, for his blood was rushing something awful.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“It’s been done before.”

“You’re playing a trick.”

“I’m not.”

“And imagine what your brothers––”

“They’ll bear it well enough.  They owe me a country.”

“Oh gods––” He was laughing now.  “You are dumb.”  He wiped his wrist across his eyes.  “The saddest princess I ever laid eyes on.  Your hands!”  He took my hands and kissed the fingertips.  “What happened to your finger?”  He moved to my face, and before he could poke me in the eye I pulled his hands down between mine.

“Go on about my hands.” I was so hot I thought of taking off my shirt.  “You look like a three-year-old corpse.  But I’d say”––just like a girl I couldn’t stop talking––“we’re the prettiest couple in the country, cause of what the drabs say––in better worlds than this, beauty is measured by the scars you’ve managed to collect rather than avoid––”

“Bunch of shit.”  He kissed me again, and I pushed him away.

“So’s most things.  And that woman who ruined our lives?  Fuck her.  Fuck her backwards and forwards.”  I looked up at the branches, and the rain fell into my eyes and made them run.  “Can you hear us?” I yelled.  I pressed his hand into the mud.  He pulled back, but my grip was tight, and laughing at his face, I poured it through his hand and into the tree until she bloomed and rained white.

***

Andrei’s strength came back, and as my feet were causing me trouble he carried me on his shoulders back to camp.  I gave Nefer’s dragonfly broach to Emry (as the whole thing had started with her mother) before she disappeared back into the wild with Seacho and the others. 

But the silver urn was put to use, and the Evenahlen contingent preceded the Ombenelvan one back to Ellyned, where Calragen stood brazenly on the quayside and waited until each black cuirass had boarded a ship bound for the Aclun and the South.  How long they would remain satisfied with the decoy was anyone’s guess. 

We kept out of sight for a time, across the estuary at Daifen’s place, and learned firsthand why Daifen had acted as he did. He wasn’t the villain we’d made him out to be.   

“The pendant?” he stammered.  “You understand, stealing––that is to say, requisitioning, the thing was my only means––you understand––my only means of suppressing the rebellion.  That is to say, my good lords, with the thing gone they might’ve left––

“Left, I’m sure,” said Mordan.  “Or done something much worse.”

“I could think of no other way.  No other way––”

“You do realize what those mercenaries would’ve done had they found out?”

“Let him alone,” I said. 

“Stop sticking your oar in, Mordan,” said Tem. “And you needn’t cry, Reyna, you’re not a little girl.”  (Relief was making me ridiculous.) “But there’s something else I want to address.”

“Rewritten laws,” said Mordan helpfully.  “About weapons.”

“Just another matter of suppressing––without weapons, you understand, suppressing––”

“And had you been successful, our budding Ravyir wouldn’t have got his kick in the arse, would he?”

“Perhaps you ought to read a book on logic, Mordan,” said Tem.

***

After two weeks my feet had healed and Tem allowed for a short trip into the city, provided that he and Mordan accompanied me.  Arin would’ve come too, but he couldn’t run fast enough in a brace.

“Run fast enough?” said Mordan.

“All those girls you spied on,” said Arin.  “They’ll have told their brothers.”

Brace or no, Mordan went and sat on Arin’s head for half an hour. 

We paid a visit to Hal first, who kept two rooms above a shop. It was midday, and a faint wail hung in the stairwell.  It poured out full-force when I opened the door.

Padlimaird stood at a table, making an ill-tempered racket with a milk jug and a bottle.  Strapped in a chair next to him was a little girl.  She was red in the face, twisting back and forth, screaming.  “Here, here, here,” Padlimaird said, giving the bottle to her.  “Domineering as your mam, ain’t you?”  She sucked noisily and laughed when he spread himself into a supine position on the floor.

“Between you two I don’t know which is the baby,” I said. 

He sat up.  “Damned if you know anything. Where you been, Lally?”  Mordan cleared his throat.  “Who are them? Ghostly, ain’t they?”  Padlimaird stood up.  “All got the same eyes.”

“We’re her brothers,” said Mordan.  “You don’t know where Hal is, do you?”

“Out.  Brothers?”  Padlimaird scratched his head.  “Where was you this whole time?”

“Somewhere else,” said Tem.

“Oh,” said Padlimaird.  “What shall I call you?”

“Tem.”  Tem looked at the garret across the way.

“I’d thought it’d be Fleabane or Zinnia.”  Padlimaird chuckled.

“Why are you drawing it out?” I said. “He’s just going to embarrass himself and get cranky.”

“What do you want me to do?” said Tem exasperatedly. “Hand him a calling card? Temmaic Lauriad, pleased to meet you?”

“What’s this?” came Hal’s voice behind us.  “Padlimaird, you in trouble?”  Tem and Mordan turned round.  Hal dropped his fiddle on the floor, and Daira laughed.

Tea was poured (there was little else), and it was late in the night when all our tales were told.

***

In the late spring, when Liskara had finally picked her way back to the palace stables, Tem was crowned King.  There was dancing along the riverfront, bright gowns, dark hair woven with blossoms, and Andrei with his merry brown eyes; and somewhere a voice sang low and loose:

Dara lun, dara lun diorlinga adebry.

Loan, ginder leo, loan gaefed wghl adhe.

Wldhfen sun ginder orchel dur lin aeghl eaor hold

Derreld aeo mass eldha chel llorwy.

Norembrin, lairaded down da ramh elded.

Norembrin, breldaded glain daelded dreid,

Derry breldaded e’ercruin dyd darn enge morda,

Dem mrei ealsa plun twy chelonin dem braid.

Norembrin, graichelded ederidh blwn langad.

Lorena elded ederidh rei ad sor.

Adhe corn elded brinbodh ederent oidey ade,

Wghl bry edidh brin adh e’erdaimh na wot gor.

***

When the country’s affairs were in order, Calragen sent his contingent across the Daynens to Lorila.  Then he set sail for Evenalehn to appeal for more aid. 

Trid and Andrei went with him, and Floy and I, too.  I wanted out.  Our schooner was named Aloren, Starflower, that is, in Gralde, and small breakers split across her keel as we pulled out of the harbor.  Terns circled above.  It was a cold morning but I wasn’t wearing shoes; and presently sun broke through the fog and warmed the deck, where we were sitting.

“Funny,” said Trid, leaning his head against the railing, “how this turned out.”

“Even funnier how Aly looks in a dress,” said Andrei, and I threw my apple core at him.

 “Come on.”  I stood up.  “Come on, let’s see who’s really wearing the dress.”

Andrei made as if to rise but Trid grabbed his shirt.  “Let her honk.”

***

Years later, a man from the north told me that somewhere, on a hill overgrown with yews, beneath a small, fruitless rowan, a circle of flowers grew year round.  No one had ever seen them. But it was a pretty tale.