There was something supremely
decadent, she decided, in lying abed when the Lantern hovered just below the
western horizon, limning the cloud-speckled sky with all the colours in the
Holy Mother’s palette. Once upon a
dream, centuries ago, she would have been chivvied out of her blankets by her senis in the antediluvian darkness, and
set to the day’s labours - cleaning and scrubbing, sorting and arranging, cooking
and bathing and primping, all to be complete before the Communion. Years later, for an all too brief period, she
had been senis, lording it over her
own infima with imperious
self-righteousness.
She remembered those days, and those
sisters, better, it seemed, than she remembered any of the three-score times
that she had served as praeceptrix -
or any of the endless sequence of senisae
and infimae that she had trained in
turn. Time’s wheel had, in its
remorseless turnings, crushed the memories out of her.
It did not help that she was still
drowsing, of course; sleep clouded the mind and erected a soft, billowing
barrier between the spirit and the waking world. In the bliss of the Communion, she knew, she
would be able to remember them all, and in exquisite detail - every hair, every
freckle, the colour of every eye, the lilt of every voice, the touch of every
hand.
But the Communion would never come,
she groaned to herself, if she laid any longer abed. Once, her subordinates would have woken her
if she had decided to play the sluggard.
Now there was no one within a thousand paces who would dare to disturb
her dreams. She was no longer what she
once had been; no longer the untutored infima,
the confident senis, the magisterial praceptrix. She did not even have a name any more; she
was no longer an individual, with an individual’s aspirations and
ambitions. She had ceded those to the
Goddess, just as she had ceded the moniker that she had borne for the better
part of a thousand years. Innumerable
tiny sacrifices, joyfully offered in an ecstasy of praise, transforming what
had once been a proud daughter of the Third House into a selfless and obedient
slave of the Maiden. A being of pure
service: Lustrumater.
The Den Mother.
The
Den Mother, she thought, groaning as she stretched, is getting old. Miyaga’s
blessings had preserved her grace, her beauty, her poise and her skill, but
they did nothing for the joints. In face
and form, she knew, she was indistinguishable from any elf-woman a third her
age, but her back felt every turn of the seasons. It was getting harder and harder to play the
spry young vixen.
Enough. If she wallowed in luxurious self-pity any
longer, the Lantern would be at zenith, and all the House would wonder whether
the Mistress was losing her grip. She
had a reputation to maintain, after all.
Tossing aside the peach-coloured
sheets of flawless satin, she stretched out, bare as buttermilk, and wriggled
her shoulders into the straga. She placed her hands beneath the small of her
back, bent her knees, and straightened them again, toes pointing at the
ceiling. She executed a few more
leg-lifts in quick succession, feeling her stomach muscles contract pleasantly;
and then, palms flat on the mattress, pressed herself backwards into a
neck-stand. A quick shift of her
forearms and she pushed herself up into a full hand-stand, gritting her teeth
at an unexpected twinge between her shoulder blades. She held the pose until her shoulders began
to quiver, then let her legs fall behind her back, rolling effortlessly into a
walk-up.
A light sheen of perspiration
dappled her brow, and her lifebeat was thudding languorously; she could feel
the throbbing pulsations beneath her jaw, and in the great vessels of her
thighs. Smiling to herself – Old, maybe, but not dead. Not yet! - she rolled her shoulders to
ease the tension.
Glancing around her bed-chamber, she
saw that her dressing gown was still laying strewn across her settee, and
resolved to have a word with Grilani, her chambermaid. She crooked a finger, and the garment, a riot
of brilliant scarlet, sky-blue and black, flew towards her, undulating like an
airborne spectre. It settled upon her
shoulders like gossamer, twisting and contorting to allow her to slip her arms
into the sleeves. The thing arranged
itself in decorative folds, and the belt knotted of its own accord.
She was desperately thirsty, and
stared longingly at the water pitcher standing on a nearby table. But the Rule allowed no refreshment between
waking and the Communion, and she would be damned before she broke it in
response to base, animal needs. Rather
than take a glass, she snapped a leaf from the sprig of sweetspire that Grilani
had left beside the jug, popping it into her mouth and biting down. The Rule forbade food and drink before
worship; but praise the Goddess, it allowed breath sweeteners.
Still chewing, she started up the
stairs that led to the roof of the House.
There was a spring in her step that she hadn’t felt moments before. Time to set the example, and show her
worthless crowd of juvenile know-nothings that this Den Mother didn’t just
enforce the Rule; she lived it.
♦♦♦
Her heart was still racing, her
breath coming in short, hitching gasps, as she opened her eyes, squinting a
little. The Communion had been
especially powerfully this morning. There
was something about a clear dawn - light limning the high-pitched gilt-and-silver
roofs of the Isle, sparkling from dew-speckled treetops, and glancing off the
bottoms of fleeing clouds, turning them from purple to red to orange to gold -
that seemed to kindle something within her.
She had long ago learned to accept it.
On rainy mornings, the Maiden’s divine touch was tentative, slow and
fleeting; but when the Lantern hovered just below the horizon, in the tremulous
moments before it peeked above the hilltops to the west, the ecstasy came swift
and hard. It always did. Today, she had scarcely had time to close her
eyes and compose herself before it was there, springing upon her like a tiger
from the jungle green.
Swift
and hard. She felt a bead of sweat
trickle down her spine, and shivered. It
was more than the exquisite aftershocks of the Communion; a stiff spring breeze
had preceded the dawn, shaking the leaves and blossoms of the rooftop garden,
making the thin fabric of her robe flutter, and raising what felt like an acre
of gooseflesh. Before her devotions she
had hardly noticed the chill; now it was enough to make her teeth chatter. At the same instant, she became conscious of
the pebbles pressing into her knees and the ache of the ankles bent beneath
her.
She sighed. Getting
old. It was time that she got
below. Anteliora, the Apprentice-Mother,
had warned her of a new draft of supplicants, and she had promised the
archivist that she would look over a leaf-book that had come in the previous
day. Naumastis, her principal deputy,
wanted to discuss budgeting. Probably pressing for an increase in the
programme of offerings, she mused. As if we weren’t already squeezing our
patrons for every libellum. And in
the wood smoke rising from a nearby chimney - she cursed her stomach for
betraying her so - she could smell bread baking.
Base
needs! she sneered to herself. The
Disciples strove always to quell them, the better to allow their passions free
rein. And the better to control others
through their own animal desires. But she
had learned, over the course of a long and fruitful life, that one needn’t deny
one’s-self to master others.
You’re
stalling. She was. Stretching a little, she could see over the
low parapet that ringed the rooftop garden.
Many of the buildings of the Ancient Isle had such luxuries; some were
so covered in verdure that, viewed from above, parts of the city looked like
the forest was encroaching upon the elves’ capital, re-conquering land that had
been first claimed from the woods in Tîor’s day. The illusion wasn’t quite complete, however;
those structures with classical roofs - slate and wood, copper and gilt - were
just as numerous, and many were massive things, graceful, tall and
imposing. The Palace - out of sight to
the south - was like that, as were many of the Houses of the Twelve. The House of Light and Fire, too - Yarchian’s
great conlectio, his timeless
monument to the elves’ masterworks, preserving all that was left of the
magnificent arts crafted before the Darkness
- was likewise a marvel.
Most imposing, though - You have the same thought every morning, you
old fool, she chastised herself with mild contempt - was the College. Ludus
Astralis, another of Tîor’s innumerable legacies, glimmering like snow and
pearl, its flawless, pristine spire seven times the height of any other
structure on the Isle. Tîor had built
it, wrenching its beauteous fabric from the bones of the earth; and his brother
Dîor, that no one might ever dare to attempt to surpass the feat, had made it
an article of his law that no building in Starmeadow could exceed it in
height. The tip of the spire was already
illuminated by the rising sun, glowing like a spear-point left too long in the
forge, sparkling with glints of the inestimable power and wisdom that lay
within its walls.
The Den Mother knew a little about
that power and wisdom. Magi were special
folk, to be sure; but they were mortal too, enjoying the animal needs and
desires that the Holy Mother, in her eternal wisdom, had implanted in all of
the Kindred. She knew them, and they
knew her, and her Disciples.
As she watched, the glimmering blade
of light crept down the great spire; she could almost see it moving. Skyward, deep purples changed to dark reds,
then to bright orange. She loved the
dawn. It was like a painting, the most
marvellous of works; a mystical canvas that froze when you stared at it, but
that, if you glanced away for even an instant, changed into something new. She wished it could last an hour, or a day,
or even a year. If she could, she would
have set the sky in crystal, the better to display it in -
“Mother?”
She started, glancing over her
shoulder, and wincing a little as the muscles in her neck pulled uncomfortably
tight. Evidently the Communion had been
more demanding than she had realized.
The girl stood by the door to the
tower stairs, hands folded and eyes downcast, as custom demanded in her
presence. She recognized the intruder,
of course; it was Taustani, a recent graduate of the Pergulatibia – the School
of Pipes
Learning wasn’t a bad thing, the
Mother reflected. But she did miss the
girl’s singing. “What is it, daughter?”
she asked.
“Am I disturbing you?” Taustani
asked, a little more hesitantly than was normally her wont.
“No,” the Den Mother replied,
somewhat nonplussed by the girl’s unaccustomed timidity. “Speak up.”
“You...Mother, I beg your pardon,
but...but is your Communion...”
“The moment is past,” the older
woman said drily. Suddenly, she
understood, and grinned. “You were
watching, were you?”
The girl’s face went white, and she
stared at the ground. “I apologize,
Mother, most profoundly. I did not...not
mean to...to intrude...”
The Den Mother burst out in happy
laughter. “Nonsense. If I’d been worried about privacy, I’d’ve
locked the door, child. Besides, the
Communion is something that we are meant
to share.”
“Oh!” Taustani gasped. “Oh, I know!
And I did! I mean...”
The older woman cocked an
eyebrow. “Got caught up in it, did you?”
The girl nodded, blushing furiously.
“Well, good. I’m glad to see you’re attuning so quickly.”
“How...Mother, may I ask a
question?”
The Den Mother levered herself to
her feet, frowning a little at the twinges that shot through her lower back.
Old. “Ask away, dear,” she sighed.
“How did you manage to...how do you
reach the stars and the clouds so quickly?”
“Eh?” The older woman shot the
younger a querulous glance.
Taustani looked dumbfounded. “It took you seconds! And you didn’t even
move!” she said, incredulous.
“Ah.” She understood. The Disciples taught that the acme of divine
sensitivity was the ability to reach true Communion rapidly, in perfect
motionlessness. Few elder sisters, and
precious few acolytes, were able to do so.
She had mastered it long ago. She
shrugged. “Practice, child.”
The girl looked surprised. “Really?
That’s all?”
“A lot of practice,” the Den Mother qualified. “Years, and years, and years...” She made a face,
and the girl laughed. The older woman
laughed with her, relieving the unaccustomed tension.
She leaned down and brushed a few
specks of dust from her dressing gown.
“So,” she asked, straightening up again and joining the girl by the
tower, “what brought you to the roof so early?”
Taustani looked stunned. “Oh!
I’m sorry, Mother. A message.”
“From whom?”
“Triparanakin. She’s back.
She says she has urgent news for you.”
The Den Mother’s eyes widened. She had been waiting to hear from the woman
who had been one of her most talented students, and was now her most skilled
envoy.
Well,
she amended mentally, better to not mince
words. My most skilled spy. “Do you know what it is?” she asked.
“The message? No, Mother,” Taustani
replied. “Although...she told me to ask
you to meet her in the library. May
I...may I come along?” She held the door
open.
“Certainly,” the older woman
replied. “Although I may have to dismiss
you again, if Tripa has secrets to pass on.”
“I understand.”
The Den Mother shot the girl a
curious glance. She seemed nervous, and
was even flushing. “Is something
troubling you?” the older woman asked.
“She...it’s been more than a year,”
Taustani whispered. “Since she left.”
A lantern flared in the Den Mother’s
mind. “I’d forgotten,” she said
apologetically, laying a hand on the younger woman’s arm. “Tripa was your praeceptrix, wasn’t she?
When you first arrived?”
Taustani nodded.
The Den Mother smiled
indulgently. “How long has it been?”
“Since I left her? Two years,” the girl replied, looking
miserable.
The older woman put a companionable
arm around the girl’s shoulders. “It’s
natural to miss your first cortina,
child. I still miss mine, and it’s been
nearly eight centuries. My praeceptrix went to wind more than five
hundred years ago.”
“I’d rather not talk about it,
Mother,” the girl whispered. She reached
into the wide girdle bound about her gown and extracted a rolled scrap of
parchment. “She asked me to find this,
and bring it to you, for your meeting.”
The Den Mother looked an obvious
question.
“It’s a map of Ekhan,” the girl
explained. “Tripa wanted one.”
“Ekhan?” The older woman’s eyebrows
rose.
Taustani nodded. “Just the western half. It shows Veldt, Two Rivers
The Den Mother wrinkled her nose,
perplexed. “What would she want that
for?”
The girl shrugged. “She didn’t say, Mother.”
“Well, we’ll know soon enough,” the
older woman said decisively. “Hold onto
that,” she added, pointing at the map, “and come along. If we wrap this up quickly enough, the
bread will still be warm.”
♦♦♦
“Mother!” The new arrival knelt, grasped the hem of the
older woman’s dressing gown, and pressed it to her lips.
The Den Mother took the woman’s
hands and pulled her to her feet. Doing
so always startled her; the newcomer was easily a hand taller than her
senior. “Tripa!” she exclaimed warmly,
enfolding the woman in her arms, then stepping back and pulling her head down,
so as to and give her a peck on each cheek.
“Welcome home!”
The newcomer was as dark as the Den
Mother was fair; her features, as delicate and refined as those of any elf,
were a rich, sun-sharpened brown, speckled across the cheeks with hints of
lighter beiges, like the opposite of the freckles that popped up occasionally
among the Hiarsk. Though only a little taller than the Den
Mother, Tripa was half again her weight, with broad shoulders and hips, a lush,
firm figure, and taut muscles. Most of
her form was hidden beneath a heavy cloak that swept the floor. When she doffed her hood in response to her
superior’s greeting, the two elf-women could see that her enormous mass of hair
was bound tightly back by a long, heavy scarf of midnight silk. It seemed to move with a life of its own.
Her eyes were as brown as the rest
of her, but shot through with flecks of glimmering gold. The Den Mother had always envied Tripa her
eyes.
Triparanakin nodded briefly. Glancing over the Den Mother’s shoulder, she
nodded a second time, at the elf-girl standing quietly against the wall of the
library.
Taustani bowed. “Praeceptrix.”
The newcomer frowned, albeit
prettily. “I’m not your praeceptrix anymore, Tausi. In fact, I’d imagine you’re about ready to
assume that title yourself.”
“She is,” the Den Mother
interrupted. “But you’ll always be her
first, and you know how that is.” She
indicated with a sweep of her hand that they should sit.
Tripa chose a seat on a settee near
a low reading table; her elder took a more comfortable, high-backed chair,
easing herself into it with a wince.
The newcomer’s eyes narrowed. “Mother, are you unwell?”
“Old bones,” the Den Mother said
dismissively. “Nothing important. What brings you back? You’ve been in the Imperium of late, no?”
Tripa nodded. “I fit in better there than here, as you
know,” she said with a wry grin. “No
spells required; I just need a scarf.”
She touched her hair self-consciously.
The older woman nodded. “How are your...ah, tresses?” she asked,
eyeing the bundled mass of curls warily.
“Confined,” Tripa said drily. She glanced over at Taustani, who hadn’t
moved. “Tausi? Sister, I mean...won’t you sit?”
The younger woman’s cheek
twitched. “I thought...if this was a
private discussion...” she stammered.
“It is,” Tripa said. “But I know your discretion. Nobody knows it better than I!” She touched her headdress again.
“ And,” she added, waving a finger
at the capacious shelves surrounding them, “we’ll need your advice. Unless you’ve given up your ambition to be
the Maiden’s foremost librarian.”
“She hasn’t,” the Den Mother
laughed. “We have to drag her out of
here for Communion. Child, sit down,”
she added, beckoning to the girl.
Flushing mightily, Taustani sat next
to her former mistress, hands folded demurely in her lap.
The Den Mother turned her eyes back
to the newcomer, waiting.
“So!” Tripa began. “As you said, mother, I’ve been in the
Imperium. Norkhan, to be exact.”
“Doing what, precisely?”
“Obeying orders,” the dusky woman
said somewhat tartly. “Naumastis told me
to try to penetrate the Council of Steel.”
“I’d heard about that,” the Den
Mother nodded. “Are you telling me you
succeeded? So quickly?”
Tripa nodded. “It was difficult at first, but over the past
year things have changed, faster than you could possibly imagine. I think the Vendicar is preparing to expand
the Imperial Army. To nearly double it,
in fact.”
The older woman’s eyes widened. “Really?
I hadn’t heard that! Why haven’t
you reported it?”
“Because I didn’t know why he was
doing it,” Tripa replied. “Or even if my
suspicions were well-founded. Not until
now, anyway.”
“Doubling the size of the Imperial
Army is significant, daughter,” the Den Mother said, reproof in her voice.
Tripa held up a hand. “I said he’s preparing to double it,” the woman emphasized. “He hasn’t done so yet. The Council is
promoting an awful lot of officers; that’s why it’s been so easy to expand my
list of contacts as quickly as I’ve done.
Everybody that can stand up, see lightning, and hear thunder is being
handed a baton. Commissions to come
later, or so I’ve heard.”
“That’s unusual,” Taustani
ventured. “They’ve never risked diluting
their senior command before.”
“I know, and that’s precisely the
thing,” Tripa agreed. “It feels like
they’re trying to flesh out an expanded cadre as fast as they can. Plenty of new commanders at the century,
cohort and regimental levels, enough for a score of legions. But so far the troops themselves haven’t been
enlisted.
“And,” she went on, sounding less
certain, “they’ve nowhere near enough equipment to outfit such a massive
force. The Empire’s resources are
enormous, but they’ve already got a quarter of a million men under arms, and as
many in the reserve, and their smiths have to keep the forges going day and
night just to keep up with demand.”
“Are they importing weapons?”
Taustani interjected, leaning forward.
“That would be the key indicator of how serious they are about standing
up any new formations.”
“I don’t know,” Tripa replied,
looking thoughtful. “Not from us. From Gasparr? If they were, I wouldn't necessarily know. I’ve been working
on developing contacts in the general planning staff.”
“What about horses?” the girl
pressed. “An infantry legion needs as
many mounts and draft horses as men.
Where are they getting the horseflesh?”
“As I said, sister,” Triparanakin
said somewhat stiffly, “ I haven’t really looked at that side of the
show.” She shrugged. “I’ve been trying to figure out their
strategy.”
“Amateurs talk about strategy,”
Taustani said somewhat primly.
“Professionals worry about logistics.”
Then she clamped her mouth shut, looking shocked, as if stunned by her
own temerity in correcting her former teacher.
Tripa’s eyes widened in
outrage. Then she grinned. “Slapped down by mine own apprentice!” She put an arm around the younger woman’s
shoulders and crushed her in a fierce hug.
“Gods, I’ve missed you!”
The Den Mother watched, smiling
indulgently. “She’s right, you know,”
she said, as Taustani thrashed about, trying to escape her senior’s grasp.
Tripa was a good deal stronger than the elf-girl. “Officer appointments are a denarius a
dozen. But nobody marches an army
without cuirasses and hay-wains.”
“I know, I know,” Tripa
laughed. “Tausi’s always right!” She released
the girl. Taustani sat up, struggling to
catch her breath, smoothing her gown with her hands. “Mea
culpa, mater maxima. I should have been working on penetrating
the procurement staff. Gods know it
would be easier. Anyone responsible for
contracts is invariably corrupt.”
“You’ll address that, I trust, when
you get back?” the Den Mother asked, serious again.
The dark woman pursed her lips. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On you, Mother,” Tripa replied
soberly. “I’m short-handed. There’s just me and my cortina. Vellocina’s good,
and since she’s a diviner, she’s invaluable.
But she’s only one woman. I have
enough targets to keep ten archmages at their scrying pools all day long.”
“What about...” The Den Mother hesitated. Damned memory! She glanced at Taustani. “Her infima?”
“Eret,” the girl said.
The older woman looked back at her
envoy.
“Eret’s quick enough,” Tripa
shrugged, “but she’s too inexperienced.
I can’t send her out on her own yet.
Bottom line, Mother, I don’t have the people I need to do the job the way
it ought to be done.”
“You’re begging for more hands,” the
older woman said drily. “Get in line,
daughter.”
“Not just hands,” Tripa
objected. “Hands I can hire. I need ears and eyes. Mostly I need brains.”
“Don’t we all,” the Den Mother
mused. “Well, you’ve got a point. If the Empire’s really preparing for war,
then that’s the most important thing going on right now.”
“More so than Eldarcanum?” Taustani
expostulated. “Really?”
“Really,” the Den Mother said
decisively. “Don’t mistake me,
Æloeschyan’s a major concern. But the
worst she can do is disrupt the succession, march a few revenants here and
there, and sow a little chaos. A war involving the Empire,
though...” she whistled appreciatively.
“That could draw everybody in. Everybody. The whole world would burn.”
Tripa nodded. “My thought exactly. It’s why I came back to report in
person. Well,” she added hesitantly,
“it’s one reason.”
“The other being to plead with me
face-to-face for more staff?” the Den Mother asked with a slight grin.
Tripa shugged. “That was part of it. But also...Mother, I’ve inlaqued one of the
mages at the College in Irkhan. An
adventurer and a Knight of the Tower. He
was telling me about a problem with flux-leaping; something about creatures
from ‘beyond the walls’ forcing themselves into our world. Slime and tentacles and such-like.”
“Lovely,” the older woman
snorted. Taustani shivered.
“What really worried me, though,”
Tripa continued, “was that he said that flux-speaking in the elf-realm may have
been compromised.”
“What?” the Den Mother cried,
alarmed. “Are you certain?”
The dusky woman nodded. “He told me that the Vendicar’s prohibited
summoning and calling, and has ordered manual encryption for all information
passed by Sending and similar
spells.”
The older woman went rigid. She turned to Taustani. “Find Naumastis. Tell her to go to protocol blue
immediately. She’ll know what it
means. Move!”
The younger woman bowed and fled.
The Den Mother turned back to her
old pupil. “Who’s doing it?” she
snapped.
“He didn’t say,” Tripa replied. Her face darkened slightly. “I didn’t ask. I was wasting my time trying to twist
deployment charts and doctrine out of him.
Like an ‘amateur’, as Tausi said.”
The older woman nodded,
distracted. “Understandable,” she said. “You couldn’t know.” Her eyes cleared suddenly. “How long did it take you to get here?”
“I left Norkhan eight days ago.”
“Eight!” The older woman hissed.
“The winds were easterly,” Tripa
sighed. “We spent three days beating
about off Arx Tenebrus, trying to weather the point.”
The Den Mother grimaced. “We’ll have to check every message for the
past fortnight. See if anything
compromising might’ve gone out.”
Tripa blinked. “He...my contact didn’t say that whoever was
doing this was targeting us,” she
said hesitantly. “Not especially. I’m sure that -”
“Are you?” the Den Mother
snapped. “I’m not.” She drummed her fingers on the table, clearly
agitated.
Tripa said nothing. There was a long moment of uncomfortable
silence. Finally, she ventured a meek
apology. “Mother, I’m sorry,” she
whispered. “I’ve failed you.”
The older woman snorted. “You haven’t failed me,” she sighed. “I’ve failed you.”
Tripa straightened up. “Excuse me?”
“For the past two thousand years,”
the Den Mother said heavily, “ever since men founded the Empire, every time the
old order has been threatened, the threat has appeared in Ekhan first. I should have seen this coming.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my job,” the Den
Mother growled.
“No,” Tripa said. “I meant, why do catastrophes always seem to
begin in Ekhan?”
“Because they’re human,” the older
woman replied heavily. “They change
faster than any of the other Kindred.
And they don’t resist change, like we do, or the dwarves. They revel in it. They lust
after it. The lure of the new is
irresistible to them.” She sighed
again. “It’s why they seem to achieve
marvels in the time it takes me to braid my hair. And it’s why they’re so...susceptible, I
suppose. To malefactors. To foolish ideas. And to disaster.”
“You mean the White Hand,” Tripa
said.
“Actually, I meant the Shadow King,”
the Den Mother sighed. “But the
Theocracy was no flash of brilliance either.”
“The Shadow King...” Tripa
frowned. “That reminds me. I managed to get my hands on a copy of a
report submitted by a Regimental commander stationed somewhere south of the
Tamal Krak, in the Niriam Vale. There
was a personal letter with it. There was
something about the letter...”
“What was it?” the Den Mother asked,
curious.
Trip looked embarrassed. “You’re going to think I'm insane,” she said.
The older woman snorted. “Try me.
After eight hundred years, daughter, very little surprises me anymore.”
“Well...” the darker woman
began. “The officer wrote something
about a cavern in the cliffs below Ensher, on the west side of the Vale. He said there was a deep cave filled with
red-hot flowstone, with enormous figures supporting the roof, and a dais
with...with a statue of a demon. A ‘crouching
demon’, he said.” She paused. “I wrote down the location he gave in his
report. It’s why I asked Tausi to find a
map of the Vale for us.”
“Sounds mysterious,” the Den Mother
shrugged.
“But not familiar?” Tripa
asked. “It doesn’t mean anything to
you?”
The older woman blinked. “No,” she said slowly. “Why, what did it make you think of?”
Trip blushed furiously. “Infima
Princeps,” she said softly. “The
First Supplicant. And Lagu’s Curse.”
The Den Mother stared at her.
Tripa wilted under her mistress’s
gaze. “I told you you’d think I was
insane,” she muttered.
The older woman blinked again, and
again. “Did you bring copies?” she asked
at last.
“Of the report, yes,” Tripa
admitted. “I only caught a glimpse of
the letter. I never had time to copy
it.”
“Show the report to Taustani when
she gets back,” the Den Mother commanded.
“If there’s something to it, she’ll track it down.”
The younger woman nodded.
The Den Mother shook her head in
wonder. “Infima Princeps,” she murmured.
Could it be possible? After so much time...more than four thousand years...
Tripa felt like an idiot for even
raising the matter. Desperate to change
the subject, she said, “So...you think that some new disaster is brewing in the
Imperium?”
“Shouldn’t that be my question to
you?” the older woman replied archly.
Tripa winced. “Yes, mother.
I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You need another pair of ears. I should’ve known better. There’s too much going on in Norkhan for a
single Cortina to manage.”
The dusky woman nodded. “Ears and
brains,” she repeated.
“You’ll get them,” the Den Mother
promised.
A squeaking hinge announced
Taustani’s return. The Den Mother shot
her an inquiring glance. “Did you find
Naumastis?”
“Yes, mother, and I passed your
message,” the girl replied.
“You’ll also have to tell her -”
“And,” Taustani continued, “I told
her that you would probably want her to check all outgoing and incoming traffic
for the past three weeks, to see if anything important might have been
compromised.” She looked a little
nervous at having interrupted her chief.
Tripa and the Den Mother glanced at
each other, and burst into laughter.
Taustani glanced from one to the
other, deeply confused.
Triparanakin wiped her eyes. Nodding at Taustani, she asked, “Can I have her?”
The Den Mother shot the dusky woman
a quizzical glance. “Really?”
“She’s put her time here to good
use,” Tripa said earnestly. “She’s a lot
brighter than I am. I need her in
Norkhan.” She grinned without
humour. “You need her in Norkhan, Mother.”
The Den Mother frowned. Taustani was one of her best pupils, and an
invaluable adjutant. But if things
really were going to the nine hells
in the Imperium...
She cocked an eyebrow at the
girl. “What do you say, child?” she
asked. “Care to travel to the City of
Sea and Stone, and reforge your old cortina?”
Taustani glanced between the two
older women. “You’re...this is not a
jest, is it?” She flushed a bright,
brilliant pink.
“No jest,” Triparanakin replied
soberly. “I need an experienced senis.
Even more than that, I need what’s between your ears. What do you say?” She winked. "Want to come home?"
Taustani couldn’t speak; she simply
nodded.
The Den Mother grinned. “We'll take that as a 'yes',” she laughed.
♦♦♦
