“He became the first God Talker,” the aide said. “He taught his knowledge to a few chosen others. When the Giver learned of Elenet’s deception, he was disappointed. He turned his back to the world and went silent. He was never seen to walk the earth again. He did not sing anymore. Because of this we have the world as it is now.”
Judging by the way Igguldan fell to one knee and ran his hands over the fissures in the ancient stone, muttering to himself, the tale was well known to him already and quite affecting. Corinn was inclined to frown at his earnestness, but throughout the next hour or so he proved a pleasant enough companion. He spoke near-perfect Acacian, as did most of the party. Before long the interpreter and the chancellor’s aides fell back into the rear of the group, which broke up into smaller pods like children out on some educational outing.
“I wonder,” Igguldan said, “if it is true that Edifus was one of Elenet’s disciples. He was a sorcerer, I have heard said. That was why he-and Tinhadin after him-triumphed so completely. What do you think, Princess?”
“I have not thought much about it, but I do not see any reason to believe in magic. If my people had such a gift, then why do we not have it still?”
“So you don’t?” Igguldan asked, smiling. “You cannot, for example, cast a spell on me and force me to do your bidding?”
“I hardly need magic to achieve that,” Corinn quipped, the words out of her so casually that she had uttered them before she even knew she thought them. Heat rose across her chest and up her neck. “Maybe we created tales of magic afterward, as a way to explain the things Edifus accomplished. Greatness is hard for lesser persons to believe in.”
“Maybe so…” The prince thrummed the weathered stone with his fingers, stood on his toes a moment, and took in the scene below them to the east. “I guess I am a lesser man, then, because I love the Old Stories as they are. Your lore, in fact, plays a large part in our own legends. In Aushenia we have no doubt that men and women once practiced magic and that your people used it to master the world. There is a wonderful poem about how humans gained this knowledge. I will not recite it now for fear of embarrassing myself, but perhaps later I will get a chance to sing for you.”
“And what of magic now?” Corinn asked. “I see no wizards around here.”
The Aushenian prince smiled but said no more. As they left Edifus’s ruins and followed the back path on its slow ascent toward the King’s Rest, Corinn admitted, “I do not know that much about your people. What are you Aushenians like?”
“You would find Aushenia cold. Not as cold as the Mein-up there they scarcely see the sun in winter and it can snow any day of the year, even in the height of summer. Not so in Aushenia. True, we have a short summer, but it is vibrant. All the creatures and plants make use of the few months they have. In the spring the buds of flowers and new growth push right up from under the snow, as if one day the Giver grants them leave and then nothing can stand in their way. In the summer the weather is quite warm. We swim in the lakes in the north. Some even swim in the sea. At Killintich we have a swimming and foot race on the solstice day each summer. The racers swim from the castle pier to a point across the harbor. Then they run back again. It takes an entire day.”
The two paused for a moment at the foot of the last staircase. The others had fallen some distance behind. Corinn said, “Funny that one minute you say it’s cold and the next you talk of budding flowers and swimming. Which is the truth, Prince?”
“In a place as far north as Aushenia, it is not the cold that has the most effect on you. It is the moments when the cold recedes.” Corinn answered this with a nod, and the two stood for a moment in silence. “But we are like your nation in many ways. My people admire learning, just like yours. Some of our best pupils even train in Alecia. You know this, I am sure. Aushenia was the first northern country to ally with Edifus against the Mein. Unfortunately the alliance did not live on after that conflict was resolved. That is why my father so wishes that your father would honor us with his presence. My father is not well, you see. He cannot travel, but he has spent his entire life working toward coming to an alliance with your people. He believes that we would be stronger together.”
The others had not yet reached them, but Igguldan took a step up and Corinn matched him. They ascended together, preserving their solitude a bit longer. “And we are poets,” the prince said.
“Poets?”
“That is how we keep our history, in epic poems sung by our bards. In our courts, cases must be argued in verse. It is an odd formality, but it draws crowds to the more complicated cases.”
“How strange,” Corinn said, although it did not actually seem that strange. She had no patience for official procedures at all. Maybe if all the government bureaucrats were made to speak in rhyme, she would be able to sit through them.
“You are the eldest son of your family?” Corinn asked.
Igguldan nodded. “I am. There are three after me, and two from my father’s second wife.”
Corinn attempted to raise an eyebrow, although all that really happened was that both of them ridged into erratic lines. “Second wife?”
“Well…Yes, my father reenacted the old codes, taking two wives to ensure the production of an heir. He need not have bothered, but…he was just being thorough.”
“I see. Are you likewise inclined to be thorough?”
“No, I will marry only once.”
They had reached the high balcony on the back of the King’s Rest. Corinn perched her fingertips on the stone balustrade and lifted her chin, pointing it out across the sweep of clear, greenish-blue sea before them. “So you say. You must have abundant beauties in your country-enough so that a man can wed more than one.”
“You are mistaken. Think of it just the other way around. Women have half the virtues they do in Acacia. Believe me…” The prince touched Corinn on the back of her hand. “Princess, the day you are kind enough to set foot in Aushenia, you will be hailed as the most beautiful woman in the country, and I will be chief among your admirers.”
The prince could not have conjured up a more effective statement to win Corinn’s pleasure. With that single sentence he complimented her, alluded to his enduring fidelity, and promised her universal admiration. She stood dumb for a few moments, her fingers tingling, imagining the possibility that she could spend her life a swan surrounded by ducks. She answered the prince coyly and carried on with the tour, but she decided to find out all she could about Aushenia. Perhaps she had just found her future husband. Everyone knew that Acacia and Aushenia longed to be allied together. Her marriage could be a political coup. She could be princess of one nation, queen of another. This was something to look forward to.
CHAPTER
Leeka Alain had not harbored delusions about his importance to the course of the empire’s history. Never in his forty-eight years-of which more than half had been spent in military service-had he imagined himself to have a destiny of particular note. He was just a soldier, one of many in a line that had marched in anonymity out of the haze of history. So he had believed until one particular occasion on which he opened his eyes and rose up out of an empty slumber. A simple act, done thousands of times throughout his life. But this time it was like being born anew. One moment there was nothing. The next his eyes fluttered creation into existence, a world previously unimagined, one that demanded things of him that he had never been warned were even possibilities.
At first this creation was simply a square of bright white above him, an irregular geometry, brilliance in an otherwise formless blackness. He struggled to sit upright and find purchase on the limbs he vaguely understood as hands, arms, legs, feet. He was stuck fast. He stared for some time without understanding, with no point of focus, no context. Only when a shape cut through the space-one quick flash that was there and gone in the same instant-did he stir again. He watched the square of light long enough to catch the motion once more. A bird. It was a bird, a stretch of wing viewed from the shadowed underneath. And beyond it, creation slid, a contoured softness that he recognized as a high-clouded, arctic sky. This last revelation was the greatest help yet. With it came understanding of the pressure all around him. He opened his nose and sucked in the foul cacophony of scent and knew what it meant. He knew where he was and how he had gotten there.