Sartor

PART ONE

ONE

The problem with being a princess, Lilah Selenna grumped to Bren, her best friend, is that it sounds like more fun than it really is.

Bren shrugged. As far as he was concerned, royalty and nobility were evil, though he admitted that Lilah’s brother Peitar, the new king, was about as good a king as you could get—if you had to have a king.

Lilah went on as if Bren was sympathetic. You would think it’s fun to always be first going in and out of a room, but while you’re walking in front of everybody, you notice how this noble girl is staring at the splotch on your skirt where you accidentally dropped a peach, or those counts and countesses are whispering about the way your hair sticks up because you forgot to brush it after you climbed down from the tree.

Lilah flicked her fingers through her short, wiry, rust-colored hair, cut during the revolution a few months past, when Lilah had disguised herself as the palace kitchen’s spit boy.

Bren had shared those days of disguises and desperate actions, but he wouldn’t be a prince if someone begged him. So he just laughed, thinking that so far, Lilah was the same as she’d been all summer—good company, funny, always ready for a game.

It’s all this talk about duty, but I don’t have any duties yet. Not while Peitar is trying to patch up the government, and the city.

And so? Bren asked.

And so it’s time to keep my promise, Lilah said. To visit the Unnamed.

Ah-h-h-h-h, Bren said. So why aren’t you doing it, O princess? You can’t be afraid that Peitar will rant and storm like an evil king at you.

Maybe it would be easier if Peitar did rant and storm. If he ranted and stormed, she could rant right back, and call him unfair, but if he was all kind and reasonable while counting up the reasons why she couldn’t go up to the Delfina Valley to visit the Unnamed, how to answer that?

Maybe it was time to stop worrying about it, and get it over with.

She got up. Bren went back to his sketch of the lake below the palace wall as Lilah walked into the palace, ducking around parties of carpenters, joiners, and other people busy repairing the last of summer’s damage. Where would she find Peitar? Not in the public rooms, for he did crown business right after breakfast until his lunch (if he ate one). It was so late in the day, he either had to be in the private interview room or his new study, which was next to the palace library. He never seemed to take time off. If he was not required to entertain someone, he even took his meals in that study so that he could continue working.

Lilah fumed. Peitar worked all the time.

The odor of paint made Lilah hold her nose as she dodged around the gilders and artists painting panels.

Peitar was not in the interview room, which smelled like wet plaster as two artisans fashioned twined leaves up one of the pilasters. She poked her head in the dining room. The room was empty except for the table with its white linen cloth and the gold-edged porcelain plates she’d had to stack during her time as a kitchen boy.

Lilah ran down the marble hall to the library. She dashed through the quiet room, paused at the closed door to the annex. Uh oh. That had to mean Peitar was inside. Studying. Again.

Lilah opened the door, looked in, and there he was, only he wasn’t studying. He’d fallen asleep, his head down on his crossed arms, which were cradled around an old book.

She stared. Sometimes she felt like she was the nineteen-year-old and he was twelve.

Peitar, she exclaimed. "Don’t you ever rest?"

Peitar’s head jerked up, and they stared at one another, both startled.

Peitar blinked the sleep out of his eyes and kept his retort behind shut lips. Lilah was a kid. She had never wanted to be part of government, even as decoration. Even if she wanted to, how could he unload half his responsibilities onto her—responsibilities she was unaware of?

Lilah, Peitar began.

I need to keep my promise, she said quickly. Please don’t tell me all the reasons why I can’t.

She watched anxiously for the averted face of refusal, the narrowed gaze that would mean he was doing exactly what she hoped he wouldn’t. Instead, she was amazed when Peitar’s expression went blank. Then color tinged his cheeks.

To visit You-Know-Who, she said, to clarify.

It was dangerous to even say her nickname, Atan, much less her real name, Princess Yustnesveas Landis, the last of the Landis family who had ruled Sartor since humans had come to the world.

Not many things could make a revolution seem small, but Sartor and its problems was one of those things. There were spells so powerful that saying certain names could somehow draw the sinister attention of Norsunder. Atan’s name was one of those.

At the best of times, Peitar could look as if his mind was in another world entirely, especially after being woken up. Lilah had all his attention now.

She began babbling. You know how we got to be friends, I mean me and the Unnamed, and I did make this promise to go and report how things turned out. Not that uh, the person of whom we speak, would not know already, because of, um, the other person who teaches the Unnamed. They know more than I do, I’m sure. And it’s not like those promises you have to keep, but I want to, because, you know, the friends...

Peitar raised a hand.

Lilah stopped talking so fast her teeth clicked.

Peitar’s smile was brief and a little crooked. We both made a friend, he said. But you are fortunate in being able to visit. I am not.

Lilah gawked. "But you’re now the king. You can do anything you want."

Not quite. You’ll remember our uncle ended up with a revolting populace because enough people didn’t like what he was doing. Peitar began to straighten his books, a task that seemed to absorb all his attention. Finally he spoke. You should probably go very soon, before the snows close the mountains in. Then he gave her a real smile, more like the brother she knew. How long was I asleep? I’d better warn you, Aunt Tislah showed up for another visit. She has her neighbor’s great-niece in tow...

Lilah jumped up indignantly. "Another would-be queen? She might be very nice, but I am not going to sit by while Aunt Tislah tries to kill us with disgusting matchmaking."

Death by flirtation? Peitar murmured.

"Bren and I will make certain there is no threat of romance to ruin dinner. She made a gag face. Let me see if I can tear him away from drawing." She ran out.

oOo

The number of former revolutionaries roaming around looking for trouble had considerably lessened, in part due to Peitar’s new rule that roaming gangs who did not seem to have work would have work found for them, and there was plenty of cleaning and rebuilding to be done.

Still, he sent an escort with Lilah to Diannah Wood. The forest guardians saw her safely to the southern border. From there, she climbed a grassy ridge until she could see over the treetops of the forest, and then made the magical sign. Her body tingled, she breathed deeply, feeling light as a cloud—and then she took that glorious first jump, straight into the air.

How she adored flying! As Peitar had warned, many of the familiar sky-touching peaks now wore blue-white mantles gleaming in the sun. Magic kept her warm, though, as she sped up and up over the vast mountain ranges until the ancient spell pulled her down at last into the Valley of Delfina, which long ago had been a secret retreat for mages. It was full of magical protections. There below was the lake, a deep blue, and all around it cottages built on the ledges.

She did not go to her family’s old home, but drifted down to the tree-secluded dwelling tucked against the side of a great mountain, until she landed lightly. The moment the flying-magic relinquished her, the cold wind of impending winter closed in with a sudden chill. She shivered, glad of her sturdy cotton-wool gown.

It was so strange to be back. There was no sign here of all the drastic changes that had taken place just a few days’ travel to the north.

Even stranger was the fact that she had a friend like... well, she could think her name, right here, ten paces in front of the cottage where she’d been hidden for fifteen years: Atan.

Lilah shivered. She, ordinary Lilah, a princess for barely two months, friends with the last descendant of the famous, powerful Landis family, who had ruled Sartor for nearly four thousand years.

Four thousand years—since the time when Old Sartor had been destroyed and human life nearly eradicated by the mages of Norsunder. Who knows? Maybe the Landis family had even existed before those mysterious days!

There were no royal parents now. There was no royal Sartoran court, or retainers, or heralds. There was no Sartor, for it had vanished behind that horrible enchantment for nearly a hundred years.

Lilah’s life had seemed pretty exciting until she thought about that. She laughed at herself, gave her gown a tug, tried to flatten down her thatch of hair, then thought, Why am I fussing? Atan’s princess wardrobe seemed to consist of cast-off clothes belonging to some old hermit mage.

While Lilah marched up the path toward the Hermit’s Cottage hidden among the tall trees, Atan herself was thinking only of how delightful it was to have a visitor.

She turned away from one of the little windows to face the elderly mage Tsauderei, her guide and tutor. She exclaimed in delight, Lilah is here! Then she laughed. And of course you knew that.

Tsauderei’s mouth twisted. Of course. Nobody gets into the Valley without my knowing. Or out. His bristly white brows twitched upward.

Atan’s cheeks burned. Tsauderei had cautioned her many times against the risk of flying to the border and staring down into the cloud-shrouded, blighted land that lay below.

But Sartor was hers. There could be no peace for her until Sartor was free—or she died trying to make it so. Her nursemaid-guardian, Gehlei, had flown over to the main village to buy fresh food. Gehlei hated it when Atan talked about Sartor and the enchantment, so the time to bring it up was now, with Gehlei away.

Though she’d meant to come around to it gradually, Atan blurted, I think it’s time to make my try.

Yes, Tsauderei answered.

Atan gazed in shock at the mage’s lined, sardonic face. Her carefully-thought-out arguments vanished like smoke.

And that was when Lilah knocked on the door.

Atan got up to open it, though she wished she could freeze time, the way poor Sartor was frozen, until she could get all her questions answered.

But she couldn’t, so she pulled open the door with her biggest smile. Lilah! Enter! Tsauderei is here.

Lilah stepped down inside the homely cottage, grinning at the white-haired old sorcerer sitting near the fire. Ruddy light gleamed along the old man’s braided white hair and long beard, and glinted in the diamond drop hanging from one of his ears.

Lilah turned to Atan, her slanted eyes wide with her anxiety to explain. "I know I promised to come back, and I wanted to, ages ago! Oh, you can’t think how much. But I didn’t want to leave Peitar, and then it seemed he was so busy, and I—"

Atan sank down onto a hassock, her hands tightly clasped, her long, bony face serious. Oh, Lilah, Tsauderei told me about Peitar being chased about, and then captured, and then put on trial, before things got resolved. Of course you stayed. It has only been a few weeks! I didn’t think to see you again for a year, but I am very glad you came.

Ugh. Lilah grimaced. It was exactly as nasty as you think, but it’s over. And I like to keep my promises. Especially a fun one, like coming back to this valley and seeing you.

Lilah stole a doubtful glance at Atan, who was tall for fifteen. The Sartoran princess was a plain girl, except for those round, protuberant dark blue eyes with the droopy lower lid, recognizable as a Landis family characteristic in far too many books and royal portrait galleries. Atan was also a mage, and so well read, and smart. And she understood why Lilah hadn’t come, so why did she look so... so tense?

Atan studied Lilah at the same moment, glad to see her friend again, but wishing she had come at another time. Any other time.

Except maybe the two things were related?

Atan said, I’m glad you are here. Because another day, and you might have arrived too late. She spoke the words, but she heard them from far away, as if someone else said them. She was almost giddy, and paused to take a deep breath. I made my decision.

She turned to Tsauderei. Did you understand me? I think I must leave as soon as possible.

And Tsauderei said again, Yes.