Ethrian went on, “That is a name. It does not mean Place of the Iron Statues. It means Stronghold Lonely. Or Fortress of Solitude.”
All right. Mist understood. “Thank you, Ethrian. We should find that useful.” Though how she did not at that moment see.
Nepanthe practically pounced on her son, drowning him in hugs of happy approval.
Mist felt the air move. Varthlokkur was beside her. “I arrived in time to hear him.”
“Good. Where is Eka?”
The question puzzled him.
“I sent her to find you.”
“She’s still looking, then. I didn’t see her.” He pushed up for a better look at the map. “Good work, Scalza.”
“Scary good work,” Mist opined. The truth of her children had begun to leak through their clever masks.
Mist had carried them inside her for nine months. She could not harm them, however they threatened. Well, she could do no physical harm. Injury of the emotional sort she had inflicted already.
Varthlokkur considered the map as if entranced. His face went through changes, as though illuminated by lanterns shaken by a vigorous wind. He started, muttered, “Whoa. That was…” He recalled that he had an audience. “Sorry. I had an attack of the reminiscences.”
Mist eased forward a foot, more directly into his line of sight. “And?”
“I’ve been there. A long time ago. I was someone else at the time. Probably Eldred the Wanderer…though that doesn’t feel quite right. It was after the Fall.”
Mist waggled fingers at her mental specialists. This might rate a closer look.
The wizard mused, “That may have been when I first met Nepanthe.”
A patent impossibility, though no one challenged him. That would have been centuries before she was born. Still, it was no secret that Varthlokkur had discovered Nepanthe in prophetic visions ages before she was entered into the lists of the world.
The idea that he might have been in thrall to Old Meddler once did nothing to comfort anyone now, himself included.
Mist asked, “Can you recall anything else about that?”
“Things are in there, a little rowdy, a little shy, rambling around just outside the firelight. I’ll try to lure them in.”
“Have these two help.” She indicated her specialists. “And don’t waste time. I’m sure that the old devil being there isn’t good.”
“Probably not. But let’s don’t focus on the past so much that we miss what’s happening now.”
Ethrian had to be pried loose from his mother and probed while his mind remained connected to realities beyond the usual. Likewise, the Old Man required a closer look. He showed signs of having had memories broach, too.
She wished she had additional reliable mental experts. And she dared never forget that her empire was managed by fractious, powerful aristocrats who did not appreciate the fact that she was female.
…
Ekaterina took the opportunity of being unsupervised to snatch a few minutes with Radeachar. Her friendship for that thing was nothing like her feelings for Ethrian. This was rooted in empathy. The Unborn was far more of an outsider than she was-though her status in that realm had more substance in her own mind than in the quotidian world. The feedback she got suggested an unlikely family pet-as she imagined the devotion of a dog might be.
She had not interacted with an actual dog in years. There were none in Fangdred. The supply situation would not support the luxury of unproductive mouths.
So. Radeachar was, by an order of magnitude, the most alien entity she had ever encountered, yet she was comfortable around it. Even Varthlokkur sometimes got the creeps. Never Ekaterina.
Him. She should give Radeachar that. Radeachar would have been “he” had he been produced by a normal pregnancy and regular infancy.
Radeachar liked being near her. It was a cunning monster, though. It understood that she could not be seen being close or she would suffer. She was too young to sustain the emotional burden of being a great dread.
Too, the thing could not become as devoted as it might prefer. Its abiding obligation was to the Empire Destroyer. Varthlokkur had preserved it-him!-when the rest of the world just wanted the demonspawn to burn.
Was she under some compulsion to attach emotionally to crippled cousins?
When you zeroed in on strict fact, she and Radeachar were related. Her grandfather was his father, so he would be her uncle if she had her facts straight.
Sudden laughter ripped free.
A glow of pleasure illuminated Radeachar. He was pleased that she was cheerful even though he did not understand.
She brushed her fingertips across the membrane separating the bizarre embryo from the world, then kissed it, too. “Thank you. I feel much better, now.” Maybe because she had been reminded that her own situation was far from as awful as it could be.
More pleasure radiant from Radeachar.
She returned to the crowded workroom in the Wind Tower prepared to apologize because she had been unable to find Varthlokkur, discovered that her mission had been unnecessary. The wizard had found his way back on his own.
“Where have you been?” her mother demanded. Like she had some right.
Ekaterina accepted no such claim but offered only an insidiously insubordinate counter-challenge. “I took a long journey to a far place, Empress. A philosophical pilgrimage. An expedition of epiphanic conceptual discovery.”
“Wait for it,” Scalza sneered, loud enough for half the crowd to hear. “We’re in for some vintage Eka.” He seemed eager to see how his mother handled that.
“You’re gonna get your turn, Worm. And you’re gonna love it. Did you realize that Radeachar is our uncle? He’s Mother’s little brother.”
Mist gawked. That was true but it had not occurred to her, ever.
A melodic tinkle of amusement escaped Ekaterina. Something odd, there, though. It started out light but quickly became creepy. “He never needs changing so she still won’t have to learn how to deal with babies. She’ll never have to get her fingers dirty.”
Her tone left all her audience disturbed.
…
Mist realized that Ekaterina’s remarks would make no sense even to her if she thought about them, but, still, they served up a steaming dollop of emotional truth. Not once had she gotten her hands soiled serving the needs of her infant children. It had been a rare and remarkable hour when circumstance or deliberation found her in the same room with either or both before they could walk and talk. But that reflected of her own earliest years-and most of the years that followed. She did not remember her mother. Her father had been a huge, grim, infrequently suffered manifestation more fearful than any kami or demon. She had anticipated his rare visits with massive anxiety.
These whiners endured a childhood far more family-intimate than hers had been.
Ekaterina’s remarks appeared to amuse Varthlokkur and Scalza while baffling everyone else. Those closest to being in the know, Lords Kuo and Yuan, were indifferent.
They did not care if the blood of Tuan Hoa filled the monster’s veins, if blood the thing even had. There was no sign that it ever took sustenance in tangible form. They had noticed that. It did not eat; neither did it shit.
That was scary once a Tervola reflected on the implications. It troubled Mist now that it occurred to her.
Eka had gotten a reaction big enough to encourage her to go on being absurd. “So not only is Radeachar our uncle, he’s probably ahead of us in Shinsan’s succession. He should be king of Kavelin, too. He has the blood-right. Queen Fiana was his mother. Uncle Bragi only got the job later, by being elected.”
Mist snapped, “Eka, stop being ridiculous.”
“I know. Nobody would want him, despite his claims. He isn’t pretty enough and he doesn’t have good social skills.” Scalza grinned broadly, enjoying the vintage Eka. “But his legal claim is solid.”
Varthlokkur settled a hand on the girl’s shoulder, startling her. “Eka, the law, in most cases, isn’t what’s in compendiums. It’s what the man with the most swords says it is on any given day.”