Carol Berg - Daughter of Ancients

By the grace of His Majesty, Evard, the late King of Leire, had this decree been lifted, and at the command of Her Majesty Roxanne, Queen of Leire, had one Karon yn Mandille, a historian, archeologist, and physician of Valleor been required to prepare a history of the decree of extermination, its origins, and its results. On this day, said my mother, she would present the first of twenty-six lectures on the work he had completed before his death.

For two hours, she held the room spellbound in the grip of her story—my father's story—my story—and she had scarcely even begun. When she closed her notes and said, "Until next week," the room erupted into the chaos of excitement and discovery. From every side came questions, demands for more time, more words, more of the truth they had never even suspected.

She remained an island of serenity in the center of the storm, patiently telling them to come back and hear more. They would hear the truth of a universe that was larger than they had ever imagined. They would understand.

Throughout all of this, I sat on the back row of the lecture hall and watched as the circle of admirers and skeptics drifted away, still chattering and murmuring. My mother's eyes roved the empty chairs until they landed on me, not surprised in the least to see me there, though I'd not told her I was coming and had not seen her for almost half a year.

Her smile banished the shadows. "What questions would my students have had if they'd known the King of the Bounded, the most powerful sorcerer in three worlds, was sitting in the hall?"

"A small wonder beside the first woman ever to give a lecture at this University," I said. "Someday we may have a university in the Bounded, and I needed to know if a woman could teach men anything."

She laughed. "This is all your doing, isn't it? How else could Roxanne have known to command the Chancellor to allow it? For me to stand here . .." She waved toward the vaulted ceiling and the tall windows of colored glass, to the ancient lectern, and to the rows of seats where every scholar of the Four Realms had sat at one time or another. Where my father had once sat.

"I only mentioned it to her. It wasn't my idea." I strolled down the long flight of steps, the stone worn into concavity by the generations of students who had trod them, each step a little too wide to take in one stride, a little too shallow to require two. "But I had to be here. I was asked to give you something when this day came."

Into my mother's hands I placed the long, thin parcel I'd brought with me, wrapped in green silk and tied with a green velvet ribbon. For one instant her cheeks lost their flush of exhilaration, but as she unwrapped the parcel, her graceful fingers ever so slightly trembling, her soft smile drew the sweet coloring back again. The dew-drops on the soft petals that were just on the verge of opening seemed a reflection of the tears in her eyes.

But her tears did not fall. Rather she inhaled the scent of the flower and glowed with happiness. "He still cheats death," she said after a moment, laying her hand on my cheek. "To see you is to see his best self. He lives."

I had only begun to understand the magic that could create a rose of such glorious perfection and lasting beauty. This one had lived a year already. My father had designed it to bloom fresh and fragrant at my mother's bedside, the first thing she saw in the morning, and the last thing she saw at night, for as long as she drew breath.

"So tell me all your news," said my mother, as she directed me to gather and stack up her papers. She would not relinquish the rose.

"Paulo sends his best. He wanted to be here today in the worst way, but he won't leave Aimee and little Seriana and is terrified to take them traveling as yet."

I put a hand under my mother's elbow as we started up the stair, but she didn't need it. I felt the strength in her steps. "I don't know if I can wait until Seule to see them," she said. "A granddaughter . . . earth and sky . . ."

"You should have seen Paulo's face when Aimee told him she was in that way." I grinned, as always when I remembered that moment. "I don't know whether he was more embarrassed that someone might guess what he and Aimee had been up to since they came back to the Bounded, or more terrified at the prospect of being a father to a human child instead of a foal. He's been working so hard at his schooling for fear of this child being born better read than he, he'll likely be giving lectures here next year."

"And Aimee is happy in the Bounded?"

"She says so. I think she would be happy in a pit if Paulo were there with her. The Singlars adore her, calling her 'the Golden One who Sees All' and she gives them so much—showing them how their ideas could change the world."

We left the lecture hall and crossed the foyer to the heavy outer doors.

"And what of the good king of your land? How does he fare?"

I knew my mother worried excessively, afraid that D'Sanya and the deeds she had forced me to had left scars worse than those the Lords had given me. I had caused my father's death and driven D'Sanya into madness. Avonar would forever bear the scars of my war, and the Dar'Nethi would always fear me. My memories had not vanished and would not. When I worked sorcery, the temptations of power would always require me to choose the light again.

Yet, I had tried to reassure my mother that I had at last begun to understand the Dar'Nethi Way. Pain is life. Scars are life. Guilt and dreadful memory . . . those, too, are part of the pattern we weave as we walk this world. But somehow, when viewed in the vast perspective of a life lived fully, they take on less overpowering significance. Still, she worried, and so on this visit I had brought evidence I thought might alleviate her concerns a little.

I stayed determinedly somber. "Some things have happened. Serious things."

She stopped at the door and looked at me with her stubborn stare that allowed no hiding. All my plans of subterfuge and clever misdirection evaporated, and I started laughing as I shoved open the door and nudged her through it into the autumn afternoon. "He fares exceedingly well, as it happens. On my last visit to Gondai, I devised a way that a few of the most powerful Dar'Nethi, ones that Prince Ven'Dar chooses, can traverse the wall without my help. Well, a few weeks ago, Je'Reirit came for a short visit to explore the Bounded and to discuss how we should manage it all. And he brought a companion who had stormed the palace, stubbornly demanding to accompany him. His companion, a Speaker of growing influence, drove us to distraction for three lights gathering information and experience for a solid judgment of our land, and then refused to leave the Bounded when Je'Reint returned to Gondai. . . ."

My traveling companion was perched on the top of an ancient brick wall, her knees drawn up, and her eyes closed as the golden sunlight bathed her face. She didn't even move before she started in on us. "And why should I go back when the Bounded is far more interesting, and clearly in need of someone with some proper organizational skills? And certain royal persons seem sadly lacking in the disciplines of mathematics and natural science, not to mention some of the rudimentary applications of true talent."

She blinked her eyes open and smiled at my mother as if I weren't present. "Je'Reint promised to bring Papa on his next visit so that I would be properly chaperoned. Did you hear, my lady, that some mysterious person came to Gondai behind my back and enabled Papa . . . strengthened him … so that he was able to endure a healing for his back, and then left again before we could even thank him? That same person has aided every survivor of the hospice in like manner, and even poor J'Savan the Gardener, who now tends a small farm in Lyrrathe Vale. Papa will adore the Bounded. A new life, born of our trials. I can hear him say it even now." She turned her face back to the sun, and though she closed her eyes again, she could no longer hold in her teasing smile.