This time the girl paused even longer. She sat stiffly on the carven bench, the water dripping slowly from her black suit. Her eyes followed Samadhom as the watchbear snuffled curiously around the bench. Pelio was almost jealous for a moment. The animal rarely showed interest in other people. Samadhom must sense the peculiar similarities between the girl and himself. Finally the watchbear put his massive head on her lap and looked up through his furry face at her. Meep?
The girl patted the animal’s head, then looked back at Pelio. “Up there.” She raised her slim arm and pointed vaguely through the window at the sky.
Pelio felt an angry flush start up his neck. From one of the moons? She couldn’t be. It wasn’t that the moons were unattainable; the Guild could reng objects to and from them. But the moons moved at marvelously great speeds. To jump to either of them was as suicidal as teleporting to the antipodes. But he had to ask.
“From the moons?”
“No. Much further.”
Further? The sun? The planets? The Guild itself could not seng so far. “Where exactly?” he asked.
Her back straightened slightly. “I… cannot say.”
“Cannot or will not, Ionina?” He almost forgot her beauty then, so intense was the mystery she had created. He half-rose, leaned toward her across his desk. “This is something I will know, Ionina. Where are you from?”
She spoke sharply in an unknown language. She no longer seemed shy. The soft brown contours of her face were suddenly smoothed hardwood, and her eyes said, “Bring on your torture. I will say nothing more.” He felt like the character in the children’s tale, who captures a woods-elf and then is driven mad by her obstinacy and beauty.
As Pelio sank back into his chair another idea occurred to him. He watched her closely as he said, “I’ll wager you’re afraid the Summerkingdom would invade your lands if we ever figured out where they really are.” Did she tense slightly at the suggestion? “In fact, I would wager you are of a race of witlings, hidden away in some obscure corner of the world.” “Witlings?”
Pelio almost laughed. “What you are: a person who can’t teleport, who can’t even keng a sandmite from ten feet.”
The girl just smiled, and now her eyes told him nothing. Pelio was uncertain. For an instant there, he had been so sure. But then, he had always dreamed that there might be such a race: a people who were crippled every one, living on some island on the far side of Giri. And Ionina would make an ideal citizen in such a dream kingdom: she was a witling yet she behaved like a freeborn.
Pelio sighed. “Very well, Ionina, I won’t bother you with that question”—at least for a while. “I’ll even save my other questions. And I do have many more: we haven’t even begun to talk about the flying and crawling monsters that accompanied you. But as I said, you are a guest here. I am willing to trade you information. You have already told me something about yourself; now would you like to see the rest of the palace?”
She nodded. “You are sure to show me this won’t hurt the safety of your kingdom?” Somehow she managed to sound both sardonic and shy at the same time.
“Oh no.” He laughed. “We are so strong that we do not need any deep secrets.” He rose and motioned her to follow him to the wide marble sill of the north window. The girl walked with her usual strange grace, visible even through the bulky, dripping costume. Pelio touched the dark green garment spread out in the sunlight upon the windowsill. He had appropriated the dress from the wardrobe of his statutory harem. The fabric was so finely woven that it had a sheen whether wet or dry. And in either state it would be comfortable and light. The styling was simple, with only a single beading of rubies along the upper hem, but all in all it was the finest dress Pelio could give the girl without exciting comment among the servants. He raised the green softness from the windowsill and handed it to her. “This is for you.”
“Why, thank you.” She held it upside down as she inspected it. “But … what is it?”
The question surprised him. He could never really think of her as a savage. “It’s a dress, of course.” He aimed it around in her hands, until it was correctly positioned before her body. “See, the upper hem goes here, and the rest just drapes down.” His hands moved close to her, but didn’t quite touch. “You can put it on in the alcove.”
Ionina said something unintelligible. She seemed to be fighting with herself, and her large brown eyes avoided his. Then: “May I still own the clothing I wear now?”
Pelio tried not to show his anger. “Certainly.”
The girl nodded and disappeared into the alcove. How could someone so graceful wish to dress like a sod?
A minute passed and Ionina stepped from the alcove: the dress revealed that she was even more beautiful than her coveralls had hinted. She stood with her long, slim legs tensed and her arms akimbo, and looked defiantly back into his gaze.
Pelio restrained the words he felt rising with him. “The dress does you well, Ionina. You look a proper guest of the prince-imperial.” He pointed to the silver brooch on the curve of her thigh. “This fastener should be turned about, though. There. Are you ready to see the palace?”
She nodded uncertainly and raised her damp coveralls. “Just leave them on the windowsill,” Pelio said as he pulled the servants’ bell. “I promise they won’t be disturbed.” Before he had finished the sentence, his two bodyguards were out of the water, and standing at attention before him. Without their renging he couldn’t travel the palace any more than Ionina could. “To the South Wing,” Pelio addressed the men, “the Gallery.”
The Gallery was as far south of the equator as Pelio’s study was north, a total distance of more than sixteen hundred miles. When Pelio and the others bobbed to the surface at their destination, the floor and the surface of the pool seemed canted—which wasn’t surprising since they were now almost twenty degrees of latitude away from the North Wing. Ionina pulled herself from the water, and stood for a moment on the balls of her feet, uncertain about the sudden change in the direction of down. Pelio and the others scrambled out, leaving Samadhom alone in the water, his two front paws up over the ledge of the pool. The animal kicked vigorously, and uttered furious but faint meep meep sounds as he tried to get out. You overfed dummy, thought Pelio, as he grabbed the watchbear by the scruff of his neck and slid his 150-pound body onto the floor.
The Gallery sat in the lower foothills of Thedherom mountain. The view wasn’t as spectacular as many around the palace, but that was one reason Pelio chose to visit the place: with the reception for the new Snowfolk ambassador taking place up in the Highroom and the Keep, the Gallery should be uncrowded today. He was right. In fact, the only other group he could see was a collection of young nobles picnicking some five hundred feet away across the living balcony that was the Gallery.
The prince led Ionina off the stone platform and onto the grass. The green was deep and soft beneath their bare feet, and spring rain had left a sheen of water over the grass and hedgework. Behind them, the bodyguards stayed within sight but just out of earshot. Pelio pointed to the hillsides of red-flowers stretching northward up Thedherom’s skirts. Those bloomed only through the spring and summer, but when the colder seasons came here, one could still find them—along with spring and summer—back in the North Wing. To the south, away from Thedherom’s snow- and cloud-capped peak, green plains lay out almost to the horizon. There they merged into a faint band of dusty brown—the Great Desert, where lived the Summerkingdom’s most persistent enemy. Pelio did not dwell on the thought. In his opinion, the people of the sands were low and primitive. They constituted a threat to his kingdom only to the extent that they harassed the far fiefs. Still, it was painful to recall that up until two generations before, the Great Desert had been a loyal—if nearly vacant—county of Summer.