Chapter 3: Lon
The rope felt warm under her bare feet, the dark tar almost too hot in the glaring afternoon sun. Daine concentrated on the heat, feeling the cool breezes which always darted through her toes, even on the most breathless days. This high up, the gasps of the people below were a distant sigh. It was just her and the rope, again, trusting each other not to fall.
It was too simple to simply walk from one end of the rope to the other, even this high up. When the players realised how steady she was on the rope, even when savage gusts of wind were tearing the pennants from the stage, they had decided to build a taller platform to draw bigger crowds. Set up in a town square, the brightly-painted poles could be seen from farms and hamlets for miles around. They came, gaping in mock fear, to stare at the girl who dared to climb so close to the gods. And, of course, that meant that climbing was not enough.
Daine bit her lip and made sure that the fluttering gauze of her wings was caught up in the breeze, and not underfoot. She could be careful now, before she began, making sure that she wouldn't trip. She checked the thin white cord which was wrapped around one wrist, making sure it was tied securely and that the other end was fixed to the platform. From below it was invisible, but the bird-man had tersely informed her that the fragile-looking twine had saved more lives than it had betrayed. The music started below her, and she raised her arms as the crowd hushed.
It wasn't dancing, not really. On the ground it would look like nothing. But up here, every half-step drew a gasp. Every frozen pose could betray a deadly tremor. When she jumped and landed lightly back on the platform she could hear women screaming. Sometimes she caught sight of them fainting out of the corner of her eye, and had to struggle not to laugh. Her balance was good, sure, but laughing would just as surely bring her crashing down.
Sometimes, too, she spotted Numair watching her, his eyes inscrutable. He never said anything to her when she climbed down, not any more. For the first few weeks he'd laughed and made jokes, but after she'd agreed to have the platform raised he'd quietly asked again why she was taking the performance so seriously. She'd repeated her reason: it gave them an excuse to talk to people.
They didn't even have to seek out gossip on the trade route; the townspeople flocked to speak to them. They were just as much in awe of the man who could make eggs vanish and reappear as strangely-tame starlings, before clapping together two empty hands and opening them with handfuls of beads spilling between his fingertips. Even some of the players begged him for his secrets. People spoke to them in droves.
"And they send word ahead," Daine pointed out, "So by the time we get to Fort Salydis they'll have heard of us. Hopefully they'll be curious enough to let us through the borders without asking too many questions."
"Yes." Numair shook his head distractedly, "I mean, no… do you enjoy it?"
"It's fun." Daine admitted. "They're so… I hardly have to do anything, but they still scream, and clap, like I learned all two hundred words of one of Grasmar's plays. I feel bad about that. He's working much harder, but they clap less."
"That's because they know he won't die if he makes a mistake."
"You think I'm going to fall?" Daine tried to cover her irritation with a laugh. "Don't you trust me?"
"Of course I do!" Numair realised that his voice was loud enough to carry through the thin walls of their caravan. He made an effort to speak more calmly. "But even cats fall sometimes, and you don't need to take risks until…"
"Neither do you. Should I lecture you now, or do I wait until one of the nobles catches you picking their pocket for trinkets for your tricks? Getting your thumbs cut off for thieving will surely help us!" Daine didn't bother keeping her voice down, and the words were more scathing than she had intended. The man reddened.
"I don't get caught." He said stiffly.
"Then, I don't fall." Daine snatched up a pile of tack that was waiting to be cleaned and left before either of them could say another word. The other players welcomed her to the large communal fire with cheerful voices, and by the time she returned she had almost forgotten she had been angry. She hesitated for a moment before pushing the door open, wondering if Numair might still be mad, but when she looked inside he was sleeping. One hand pillowed his head while the other one held a book open at the page he'd been reading when he nodded off. The familiar sight made her smile.
He was just worried. She thought, with the guilty clarity that comes after an argument. I hate it when he lectures me, but he could never help being protective of me. I guess he can't protect me from myself, is all.
The next day, she calmly told Grasmar that she would only climb the higher platform if she could wear a safety rope around her wrist. The circus master shrugged, clearly thinking the thin cord was about as useful as a fireplace made of ice, but didn't object. She didn't mention the deal to Numair, and if he noticed then he didn't say anything. To the Daine who danced in the sky, he became a distant pair of eyes: eyes that watched silently and kept their own counsel. When she climbed down, and stripped the cumbersome gauze wings from her back, she was simply Daine again, and everything was the way it had always been.
She stopped on the platform, hearing the scattered applause below her, and raised her arms towards the cooling breeze.
888
The stories from the traders began to get interesting as they neared the first mountain pass. They had to travel through three before they reached the valley which enclosed the Salydis lands. The locals told curious people that the valleys had once been a great river, frozen for hundreds of years, then melting and dwindling down into the river Lydis which nurtured the fields. In the winter the river swelled and froze again, a shadow of its formal glacial magnificence, and only showing its beauty to the lucky souls sealed into each valley by the mountain snows.
And what of Fort Salydis? It wasn't a glacier that had sealed off that valley!
Well no, the traders said, their voices uncertain as they glanced at each other. No, not the glacier, but…
And then the stories began. A thousand rumours, each more absurd than the last. There was a disease, a plague, or at least everyone had caught cold. There was a rockslide that cut off the route. The river had burst its banks and they were all too busy building boats to trade. All the women had grown ugly overnight and the men were distracted trying to remember which one was their wife and which one was their mother-in-law.
"So basically, you're telling us that no-one really knows." Numair said after that particular gem of a story. The traders shrugged and turned back to their ale, still trading comments about how certain people wouldn't notice any change if their wife was hit by that curse. They might mutter under their breath about the loss of coppers from the furthest reaches, but Salydis was so remote that most of them were happy enough to be turned away from the passes.
"By guards? Soldiers?" Daine pressed them, and bit her lip when they all shook their heads. Not soldiers, or at least, not all soldiers. Mostly farmers, miners… you know, just people. They were very polite and friendly, but they couldn't be reasoned with. A pitchfork is just as painful as a sword if you stick it in the right place… begging your pardon, little miss.
"It's strange." Numair said later that night, speaking in the low voice it was impossible to hear outside of the wooden walls. They'd both perfected it in the past few weeks, saving any serious discussion for the late hours when they were less likely to be overheard. A few of the other players wandered in and out of other people's caravans at will, acting offended if they were caught prying through other people's belongings. Secrets were seen as common property by such people. "If the passes were being sealed off for some kind of military reason, then surely they would be defended by soldiers, not by serfs."
"We keep thinking it has to be a coup," Daine's voice was slow as she thought, "But you're right, it doesn't make sense. I'm starting to think that maybe it is something else."
"Perhaps it's the ugly curse," Numair said lightly, linking his hands between his head and smirking when she pulled a face at him. "See, it's already working on you!"
"We'll find out in a few weeks, anyway." The girl said, ignoring him. "I'm glad; this mystery is driving me mad!"
In fact, it was only a few days before they saw the hulking shadow of Fort Salydis at the top of one of the cliffs. The rest of the players laughed at their surprise and explained that the mountain trail looped around for many more miles before it even got to the outskirts of the tithed lands. But for those miles, like a lurking creature, the fort looked down on the trail. It clung to the side of the mountain like a limpet, stretching out claws of stone which stabbed deeply into the cliff face. It was hard to tell where the natural rock ended and the castle began, and whether the gaping maws in the mountain were windows or caves.
"The tunnels stretch for miles," Grasmar said, his voice awed. "I've heard they've found the bodies of people who got lost, years and years ago, and starved to death." His voice took on the darker tone that he used to tell frightening stories in the plays. "All that's left is a shrivelled, dried up husk, their faces stretched into one last, silent scream. If you listen closely, you can still hear their cries echoing through those ancient caverns."
Daine shivered and pretended it was from a cold gust of wind creeping up to the fire. "Is the castle that old?"
"Ancient." One of the other women cut in, her voice hushed. "It was a temple, or a crypt, or just a series of caves the priests of the oldest gods used to use, and when one of the old kings gave the land to a fledgling lord they just kept building on top of it. They say that even the Lady Atheris doesn't know all of its secrets, and she used to explore it with a ball of twine when she was newlywed. She went for miles and miles, and couldn't find an end to it…"
"The modern part's quite nice, though." The new voice sounded bored, matter-of-fact: "They built a new hall a few years ago. I hear they have proper glass windows."
"Spoil sport." The woman muttered. The bored man raised an eyebrow, the firelight catching the shadows around his eye sockets.
"Oh sorry… um, fear and dread, perilous mortals, the endless, tiring and boring climb all the way up to that bloody building for one show! 'Tis truly a thing of horror!"
"Eh, you're no fun." The woman turned away, then yawned and whistled to one of the dogs lounging near the fire. It sprang up with a comical expression before it woke up enough to realise it wasn't supposed to be performing, and then looked sulky. The woman smirked at it, and bid everyone goodnight.
"You've all been there before, then." Daine remarked. The players nodded, with a few shrugs thrown in. The ones who hadn't said they knew the lady from other castles, as she used to go out of her way to see travelling players when she was younger. They all had a memory of her, they said, but not of her castle.
"It doesn't suit her, that old tomb." One of the female tumblers said, "You could tell she grew up in a place with a big garden, lots of flowers. Sweet little thing, she was. I can't imagine her rotting up there when she could have stayed in Castle Lon."
"Lon?" Numair asked abruptly, looking up. "Did you say she's from Lon?" When they nodded, he pressed further, his face stricken. "What's her first name?"
"Idama. She was Idama Lon, and then she married lord Salydis to be Idama Salydis. When he died she kept the name." The players all nodded around the fire, happy to be able to talk about their patron. Daine was about to ask Numair what was wrong before he abruptly stood up and left, running a hand through his hair in agitation. The player's eyes all flicked to Daine, and she forced herself not to look worried.
"He's had a headache all evening; I'm fair sure he's seeking out some willow bark." She said flippantly, and then waved a hand. "Not that he'll know where to look! Goodnight, everyone."
She had to follow his tracks, but finally spotted Numair climbing up one of the sheep-trails on the mountain, following the random path absentmindedly. The girl guessed he was trying to clear his head, and hesitated before following him. Two things decided her. The first was that, even if it was a secret, it was about the Lady, so it was obviously important. The second was the worrying low silvery buzz which hummed in the corner of her mind, warning her that immortals were lurking somewhere nearby. She'd known the mage to get so caught up in his thoughts he'd forgotten to eat for days; she didn't trust him not to wander into something's nest in this mood.
After about a mile the buzzing faded, and she realised the immortals had moved away. She breathed a sigh of relief, stringing her bow back around her shoulders. They'd spoken about the creatures, worrying that a large attack might force them to betray that they were both trained fighters. But the immortals seemed to be in the habit of keeping away from the trade route; the other players guessed that they'd been shot at so many times by traders and travellers that they were wary of it. She was glad that this also seemed to apply to the trail. It was getting dark, the velvety blackness of a nearly moonless night, and she was thinking about shaping her eyes into those of a cat when suddenly a mage-light lit the sky in front of her. She blinked and shielded her eyes, and heard a quiet laugh.
"I know you're following me, Daine. Come and sit with me."
"You knew I was here?" She echoed, feeling foolish. When the spots cleared from her eyes she started walking towards the light.
"Well, I guessed. Even if I'd just shouted that out to the night sky, who would hear me to argue?" The words were joking, but he sounded as if he was struggling to be cheerful. When she sat down next to him on the crest of the cliff he barely smiled a greeting, but linked his arm through her own without a word. She waited without saying anything, thinking instead about the long drop under their feet, and the cold night air rushing up from the valley floor, and the comforting warmth of being this close to him. It was a long time before he started speaking, but when he did she felt suddenly cold again.
"I know Idama." He said eventually, the words flat. "I knew her when she was Idama, and not this Lady Salydis they're all so enamoured of. I met her in Lon when I was still running from Ozorne."
"So?" Daine was confused, "She knew you as a player, not as a mage. She'll just think you never stopped."
"No, sweetheart, you don't understand. I didn't… she didn't know me as a player. She had a sister, you see. Emma. She was older than Idama- she was nineteen, Idama was only ten. We stayed in Lon for two weeks, for the Beltane fair, and for the first week I saw her watching every single show we did. When we lit the Beltane fires, Emma made sure that I was the one she danced with."
He stopped speaking abruptly, kicking his feet against the cliff. Daine was half-glad of that; she told herself she didn't care about Numair's old lovers, but it was much easier to do that when they were a vague series of faceless women. When she heard their names she had to remind herself not to get jealous. It was truly strange to be so close to someone that she could feel every beat of their heart, and yet hear them talking about another person. She figured he wouldn't be telling her all this without a good reason, and forced herself to listen.
"For the next week we were nearly inseparable. But every time Idama saw us together, she would scream and throw things at me for… well, she said I was taking her sister away from her. Emma tried to laugh it off but she was torn by it. When my troupe left at the end of the week it wasn't too difficult for us to part ways.
'But the way Idama acted… on the outside she was sweet as honey, so polite and good natured, but behind closed doors she'd bite her skin on purpose to make it bleed, and tear her hair out, because she knew it punished her sister to see her hurt. Even tiny offences, like if she wanted a piece of fruit Emma was eating, would make her act like that. And you could see it in Emma's eyes. She loved her sister, but she was so hurt by it, and the few times she wrote to me, she said that Idama was getting worse. I couldn't bear to think what that meant. And then there were no letters, no word from Lon. I asked around, to try to find out what had happened."
"Tell me," Daine whispered, her mind reeling. Numair swallowed, his voice cracking.
"She killed herself. She jumped from the watchtower in the middle of the night. They found her the next morning."
"I'm so sorry." The girl reached out and took his hand, surprised by how sad she felt at this death of someone she'd never known. He squeezed her hand back, wordless, and she had to ask, "Why have you never told me this before?"
He laughed dryly. "It's not something I like to think about. But I do, sometimes. When it wakes me up, and I can't help but wonder... Daine, I think that this job is going to be more difficult than we'd hoped."
"Well, if she's crazy… but surely the players would have noticed…"
"No, not that. She's not crazy, she manipulates people. But that's not what I'm worried about. I think… I've always wondered…" He stopped himself and rubbed between his eyes, focusing his thoughts, and when he spoke again his voice was determined. "No. The problem is that, for a week, Emma shared every thought she had with me. And Idama knows that. I'm probably the only other person in the world who knows that Emma would never kill herself. I think that she was pushed."
