Greg Keyes: The Born Queen

The dogs suddenly stopped barking.

The aerie wasn’t the only chamber in the Khelan. The whole thing was rather like a small castle or mansion or, perhaps more aptly, a wizard’s tower. Fifty-seven steps brought him to the next chamber, which he and Zemlé had dubbed the Warlock’s Bedroom. It was carved in a high vault, and although there were no windows as such, numerous long shafts brought light in from different directions, depending on the time of day, offering not only illumination but also a rough sort of clock.

The scent was stronger on the stairway, cloying in his nostrils, and when he burst into the chamber, he had the start of a good panic. Zemlé’s three great beasts were at the far end of the room, facing the hall where the stair continued down. They weren’t making a sound, but the hair on their necks was up. “Zemlé!”

He could see her on the bed, one bare leg thrown out from beneath the quilt. She wasn’t moving, and she didn’t respond to his shout. He raced to her side.

“Zemlé,” he repeated, shaking her.

Her lids fluttered open. “Stephen?” Then her brows dropped. “Stephen, what’s wrong?”

Gasping for breath, he sat on the bed.

Zemlé sat up, reaching for his arm. “What?”

“Nothing, I—I think something came through here. I was afraid it might have hurt you. Didn’t you hear the dogs?”

“They started up,” she murmured, rubbing her eyes. “They do that. This place spooks them.” Then her vision seemed to clear. “Some thing ?”

“I’ve no idea. I fell asleep, upstairs—”

“Nose in your book.”

He stopped. “You came up?”

“I guessed. If you’d gone to sleep on purpose, I rather think you would have come down here with me.” She shrugged. “Or do I flatter myself?”

“Ah, no, you don’t.”

“But go on.”

“The, umm, the window ledge was hot.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Hot?”

“I mean really hot. Burning, almost. And the banister of the stairs and the floor, in places, as if something really blistering walked through.”

“Like what?”

“I’ve no idea. But what with all of the greffyns and utins and waurms and generally ancient nasties I’ve seen lately, it might be anything. A salamandra, maybe.”

She stroked his arm. “Well, it didn’t hurt you and it didn’t hurt me, did it? Or even the dogs. So maybe it’s a friendly burning-invisible thing.”

“Maybe. Or maybe friendly like Fend.”

“Fend hasn’t made the slightest false move,” she pointed out.

“He tried to kill me.”

“I mean since he became the Blood Knight and swore himself to your service.”

“Well, right, but…he will, mark my words. Anyway, it’s been less than a month. He’s up to something.” She shrugged. “Do you want to keep trailing this beastie of yours? I can get dressed.”

He blinked, suddenly understanding that in sitting up she hadn’t brought the covers with her and was quite nude.

“That’s something I’d hate to ask,” he murmured.

“And generally untypical of men,” she replied.

“Still…”

“Just wait.” She swung her slim legs off the bed and stepped onto the floor, crossing a few paces to a dressing gown that lay rumpled there. As she slid it over her head and her white body vanished into it, he felt a strong stirring. Why should it be more erotic for her to dress than the opposite? But there it was, a fact.

He shook that off. She pulled on her buskins, and together they set off in search of the apparition, the dogs padding silently behind. Stephen wondered if she even believed him or if she was just being as deferential to him as the Aitivar and Fend appeared to be. He hoped not; he had been attracted by her strong and independent spirit, not her pliancy. In fact, she had been very much in control of the relationship in the beginning. Now, it sometimes almost felt that he was. It was as worrying as any other unfamiliar thing, especially considering the reverence with which the Aitivar seemed to treat him. “Seemed,” because they had brought him here by force, and he hadn’t forgotten that.

But there hadn’t been anything like that since. His word was law, and so far as he could tell, no part of the mountain was off limits.

Except the parts he couldn’t find.

“What’s wrong?”

It was disconcerting how well Zemlé could read his mood.

“Watch your step,” he muttered, “not me.”

“Come on. You’re distracted.”

“I’m just wondering again why the Aitivar don’t know where the Alq is,” Stephen said. “It’s supposed to be the heart, the treasury of this place, and no one can point me toward it despite the fact that that’s what I came here to find.”

“Well, treasuries are usually hidden or well guarded or both,” she pointed out. “And the Aitivar were latecomers here, too.”

“I know,” he said.

They’d reached the next landing and a series of galleries that might have once been ballrooms or banquet halls, so grand were they.

He listened, but his once supernatural hearing had been damaged by an explosion a few months before. He could still hear better than the average mortal, though, and now he didn’t notice anything out of place. Feeling about, he couldn’t detect any warm spots, either.

“Well, it could have gone ten ways from here,” he said. “Maybe I should just alert the guard.” “That’s what they’re for,” Zemlé said.

He nodded. “I’ll find them; they’re just another flight down. Maybe they even saw it. You go on back up.”

She smiled. “Fine. I’ve a mind to undress again. Will you be joining me?”

Stephen hesitated.

She rolled her eyes. “We’ll find the Alq, Stephen. As you said, it’s been less than a month. You spent all last night reading. Spend another night so, and I’ll begin to doubt my charms.”

“It’s just—it’s urgent. The Revesturi expect I can find the knowledge here to keep the world from ending. That’s a bit of a responsibility. And now this…intruder.”

She smiled and partly opened her dressing gown.

“Life is short,” she said. “You’ll find it. It’s your destiny. So come to bed.”

Stephen felt his face burning.

“I’ll be right up,” he said.

Leovigild Ackenzal eased back onto a cushion of warm clover and closed his eyes against the sun. He drew a deep breath of bloom-sweet air and let the solar heat press gently on him. His thoughts began to lose their sense as the dreams hiding in the green began to tiptoe into his head.

A thaurnharp began sounding a delicate melody that blended with the birdsong and bee buzzes of the afternoon.

“What tune is that?” a familiar voice softly asked, startling him.

“She’s improvising,” he murmured.

“It sounds a little sad.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Everything she plays these days is sad.”

Warm, supple fingers wrapped around his own stiff and ruined digits. He opened his eyes and turned his head so that he could see Areana’s red-gold hair and dark-jeweled orbits.

“I didn’t hear you come up,” he told her.

“Bare feet don’t make much sound on clover, do they?”

“Especially feet as dainty as yours,” he replied.

“Oh, hush. You don’t have to win me anymore.”

“On the contrary,” he said. “I’d like to win you again every day.”

“Well, that’s nice,” she said. “Good husband talk. We’ll see if you feel that way in ten years as opposed to ten days.”

“It’s my fondest wish to find out. And again in twenty, thirty—”

She cupped her hand over his mouth. “Hush, I said.”

She looked around the glade. “I’m going to start calling this your solar. You always want to be in the sunlight these days.”