He handed her a letter, a smirk on his face, and said, “Your heart’s desire, high matron.”
She snatched the folded letter with two crooked fingers and placed it on her lap to open it. She struggled with it. Blast her decrepit claws! Once open, she gaped at the contents. The script was circular, like a whirlpool, and blurred. She held it close to her eyes as if she could absorb the script's meaning.
“Touch it,” Kandah said. “Run your finger along it like so.”
He showed her with ink-stained fingers. She’d asked him once to wash the stains, but he’d said the stains were permanent. An ink that penetrated to the bone, he’d said. He harbored too many secrets.
“It looks more like a drawing than a letter,” she said.
“It won’t harm you, high matron,” he said. “I promise.”
She set the letter on the table. “Tell me what it says,” she demanded. She covered her mouth and wheezed.
Kandah sighed and strolled through the plants. “Unexpected difficulties,” he said.
“My spies tell me Uthkaea burns,” she said as she watched him through a tiny patch of vision in her right eye.
Kandah pursed his lips, his eyes growing distant like he was in a trance.
Gishna jerked her head left to get a better view of him. “Well?”
“Yes, high matron. Your spies are correct. An unfortunate outcome, but alas, one we cannot avoid.”
Everyone beyond the Southern was a heathen mass. There were giants and other vanalo, but they were of no consequence to her schemes.
“We?” she asked with a wet growl. “I’ve no interest in what is happening beneath the Southern. Get them here. Do you need silver? Gems? What does that rabble trade in?”
Kandah chuckled at the mention of gems. “No, but do you have spare kithaun trinkets lying around?” he asked.
She looked away. “I’ll not plunder my vaults just yet, magister.”
Her mind wandered to the ten impregnable vaults at the core of her vast citadel. Within them were precious memory tablets and tubes, trinkets and devices, weapons and bracers. All kithaun. All imbued with powerful sorcery and the memory-presence of her ancestors.
He grabbed a stool and sat down in front of her. “Then all we can do is wait and hope they find a way out.” He winced, touching his side.
“What is it?” she asked, leaning forward. “Are you unwell?”
“An old injury, high matron.”
“Are you wounded?”
He smiled at her, knowing she didn’t look at him with physical vision. Such powers as they used between themselves were anathema to her people, but natural to him. He’d taught her, and she’d taken in the teaching like an adept.
“Can Thensil not aid you?” she asked. “A valley priestess knowledgeable in healing, perhaps?” How had she missed this?
He shook his head and said, “I have my remedy here.” He pointed to the new plant.
“You will tell me if you need anything, magister. I can’t have you falling apart as well. One of us is enough.”
He grinned at her, and she shivered as his gaze traveled the length of her. He knew her too well.
“I will,” he said. “For now, please get more samples… and more plants.”
She nodded. All of that was doable. Abandoned kith potholes littered the east valley, growing who-knows-what. Most houses were not even aware of them.
“If I liberated some small trinket from my vault,” she said. “I must have assurances you will use it to my advantage. That it will bring your colleagues here.”
He breathed deeply, lost in a trance once more. This old injury must be worse than he admitted. She must find it out. She’d send for Thensil and get the truth from him.
“I can’t make guarantees, high matron,” he said. “They are far away, and many dangers abound below the Southern.”
“What?” she asked, waving away the suggestion. “Invaders with common iron for weapons? Only farmers and sheep herders! Alcar globes, they say. I’ve heard that from my spies as well.”
“There are worse things in the south than Alcarin globes,” he said. “I assure you.”
“Tell me! My house must prepare, magister.”
She was humoring him. The greatest dangers to her house lay here, lurking in the crater’s shadows, and in the fortresses of the high houses, not thousands of miles away at the bottom of the continent. But he seemed amenable to spilling his thoughts. Why not extract from him as he did from her?
“In the south,” he said, “are civilizations older than even your ancestors, the Alcarin. And there is power there—”
“What?” she exclaimed. “That abomination? Bones and tomb dust? Oh yes, magister, my spies tell me much. It is pointless magic. Uthkaea lost its true power twenty cycles ago.”
His face hardened, his deep-set eyes two black dots. “It should concern you, though. Don’t the Mornae plan for the cycles?”
“We live for the cycles, magister. Only a fool tries to plan them.”
Who was he to educate her? She had quoted Matron Nedace, and the ancient matron’s wisdom strengthened her. It was a riddle for outsiders who couldn’t understand what the cycles felt like. Mornae used the Alcar designation of cycles rather than a thousand years or millennia because those terms yielded to the genalo, or unfavored, sense of time. The cycles were something different. She wasn’t sure if Kandah’s people understood it the same as the Mornae or if they had another way of experiencing time. She must know that, too. For now, she needed to smooth over the roughness she’d just created between them. She couldn’t bear it for long.
