Author's Note: I know, I know. It was evil of me to leave you with a cliffie like that. You are perfectly entitled to hate me, but I haven't had time to do review replies, and it's a big pain to do them separately from the chapter. I hate doing that. But anyway. Here's the next chapter. Enjoy!
Chapter 15: Explanations and Ideas
Alanna stirred, then immediately regretted it. Every bone in her body ached. She felt as if she had been battered by a large iron mallet. She couldn't stifle a tiny groan as she tried to sit up.
The girl looked around. She was sitting on the floor of the temple. The Ysandir were gone; they had vanished without a trace except for a black scorch mark on the obsidian floor. She heard a pain-filled, masculine groan behind her. She turned.
"Highness?"
She watched as he pulled himself wearily to his feet.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I'm smarting a little," she admitted. Muscles she didn't know she had were screaming with pain.
"'Smarting' is an understatement," he told her. "Come one. I don't know what else might be loose in the City, and I don't think I want to find out." He stumbled over to her sword and picked it up. "It's still warm," he murmured with awe.
Alanna managed to heave herself onto her feet. She felt as if she'd been trampled by a stampede of oxen. She accepted her sword and sheathed it carefully in the scabbard hanging comically over her ripped-up dress. She quirked a wry smile.
"I look pretty stupid, don't I?"
Jonathan tried to suppress a grin. "Well…" he said. She sighed.
"I thought so."
The prince offered her his arm. "Let's get out of here. We'll lean on each other."
Somehow they made it to the city walls, where Silvermoon and Jonathan's horse Darkness waited patiently for them.
Alanna pulled herself into the saddle with the last vestige of strength she possessed. She had no wish to comment.
The prince headed east, to a small oasis they knew was nearer the Black City than Persopolis. Alanna wasn't about to argue that they were going the wrong way; the oasis was closer than Persopolis, and all she wanted to do was lie down.
When they entered the small grove of vegetation, Alanna halted Silvermoon and practically fell out of the saddle. It was the most she could do to loosen the girth and fix the reins so they wouldn't fall over Silvermoon's head. Jon did the same.
The horses contentedly cropped grass while their owners stumbled over to the spring and fell onto their knees in front of the cool water. Alanna bathed her hands and face in the refreshing liquid and then flopped with a moan onto the grass. Jonathan lent back against a palm tree.
"I wish I'd thought to bring food," he remarked. Alanna snorted.
"I'm grateful we're still around to be hungry."
They rested in silence for a while, watching the sun set over the desert horizon in pools of rose and orange. The desert air was still and cool as the heat of the day faded. Darkness came, and thousands of stars appeared in the night sky. Alanna broke the stillness.
"I suppose you're wondering why a noble girl would end up as a member of the Bazhir."
"The thought had occurred to me."
Alanna sighed. "It's a long story."
Jonathan shrugged. "We have time," he said comfortably. "I don't intend to go anywhere until I've heard it. It's not everyday I meet one of my best friends' sisters dressed up as a Bazhir."
"I'm not 'dressed up' as a Bazhir," Alanna told him somewhat irritably. "I am a Bazhir. They made me part of the tribe." Jon just looked at her.
"You'd better start at the beginning," he said. Alanna took a deep breath, and began.
"Thom and I were ten years old. Father was going to send him to the palace, and me to the convent. I didn't want to be a lady, and well…you know what Thom's like. He's always wanted to be a sorcerer, and he can't stand fighting." Jon's quiet chuckle gave her courage. "We had this plan, to switch places. Thom would go to the City of the Gods, I would become 'Alan' and become a page. It almost worked."
"What happened?" the prince asked.
"Coram found out too soon. I was going to tell him once we were halfway to Corus, but my hood fell back and Coram saw my face. After that, it was over. We were given a long lecture and sent off again, each to the place we didn't want to go.
"After about six months in the convent, I couldn't take it anymore. I ran away. My original plan was to go to Corus and find work there. I figured Thom would be able to help me. After a series of mishaps, I lost the road. I had just figured out which way Corus was when that giant storm sprung up."
Jon nodded. "I remember," he said. Alanna continued.
"I got lost. Very lost. I ended up in the Great Southern Desert. I had no water, no supplies, nothing. I was certain I was going to die when I saw an oasis.
"Unfortunately, a group of hillmen had the same idea. I almost got away before they saw me." She paused, remembering. Jonathan waited in silence. "I managed to get some of them with my bow, but pretty soon I ran out of arrows, and I had to run again. When Silvermoon couldn't run anymore, I panicked and blasted them with my gift." She laughed a little sheepishly. "I didn't know many spells, so I just hit them with all the power I had. That did the job, but I had overreached myself. I think I blacked out.
"When I woke up, I was in a Bazhir tent. Apparently I had only been a short distance from their village when I blasted those hillmen. Anyway, the shaman said that the tribe should take me in. He was getting on in years, and he didn't have an apprentice. He wanted me. The tribe adopted me, and I was made an apprentice shaman."
Jonathan frowned in puzzlement. "Isn't that a little unusual for the Bazhir?"
Alanna nodded. "It is. I'm still not sure why they did it for me."
"Okay, so that's why you're a Bazhir, but what about recent history? How come you ended up in Persopolis? And why did you run into me?"
Alanna smiled. "That's easy. Umar Komm, the shaman of my tribe, sent me to Persopolis with something for Ali Mukhtab." She had almost said the Voice, but then decided she didn't want to bother explaining the intricacies of Bazhir customs to him right now. "You saw me in the Sunset Room, if you remember." The prince nodded. "Anyway, I was on my way to Thom's room to tell him who I was. You see, he thinks I am dead. I wanted to tell him in the Sunset Room, but it was too public. I was halfway to his rooms when I ran into you. I guessed, from the questions you'd been asking, that you were off to the Black City. That place is dangerous. I couldn't let you go alone."
The prince grinned at her. "As I recall, you went along to keep me from endangering my royal hide." Alanna glared.
"As I recall, I didn't have much choice. You know what the reaction would have been if you'd gotten your idiot self killed. It could have started a war with the Bazhir," she told him furiously.
Jonathan held up his hands. "Hey, don't bite my head off. And I really am grateful to you. You saved my life."
Alanna went from anger to embarrassment. "It was nothing, Highness. And you saved mine, too."
Jon looked skeptical. "It was definitely not nothing. And you don't have to call me Highness. My friends call me Jon."
"Am I your friend, Highness?"
"I'd like to think so," he told her softly.
"Then I am."
Suddenly flustered, he abruptly changed the subject. "You know, your dream to be a knight could still work."
"What do you mean?" Alanna asked, surprised. She had long given up her dream to be a knight. It just wasn't possible.
"Well," Jon said. "You're probably at least at the level of a fourth-year squire. You could come back to Corus with me and pretend to be a young Bazhir man I've brought back. From one of the tribes that acknowledge the king, you know.
"We could say that you saved my life in the Black City, which you did—"
"Darn right, I did," Alanna interjected. Jonathan continued as if she hadn't spoken.
"—and that you wanted to enroll in the palace as a squire. You'd be the first Bazhir knight."
Alanna interrupted him again. "Well, technically I'm not Bazhir. You do realize that, don't you?"
Jonathan waved that aside. "Doesn't matter. You'll be Bazhir until you're knighted. Then you can tell them who you are. It'll be just like if you'd carried out your original plan, except you'll be Bazhir. See? It's perfect."
Alanna quirked a skeptical eyebrow. "How exactly are we supposed to get me accepted as a squire at the palace? They won't exactly be jumping for joy at the idea of an instant squire, much less a Bazhir one."
Jon dismissed that objection too. "I'm the prince. I have connections. My uncle is the training master, and he'll at least listen to me. I can't guarantee that he'll let you in, but he'll at least give you a chance.
"As for my father, he won't object. I'll tell him you saved my life, and he'll be so grateful he'd do almost anything for you. Letting you become a squire will be nothing."
Alanna listened to this incredulously. He certainly had a high opinion of himself. She didn't say anything, however, because he was going to do her a big favor. She supposed he was entitled to a bit of an overly large ego, though. Being the prince probably did that to you.
She relaxed back against the sandy, grass-covered ground. "We should probably get some sleep," she remarked after a long moment of silence. Jonathan grunted. "I'll take that as a 'yes, we should' kind of statement," Alanna said, closing her eyes.
She vaguely heard a muffled 'good night' as she drifted off into the depths of slumber.
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Oookay, here we go. Lots of reviews to reply to.
Temptress: You WISH you were evil and menacing. I'm not sure when the angst is going to happen. The sequel has suddenly become sketchier, as I will explain later, and right now the angsty reunion is not included in the final chapter, which is next. I haven't written it yet, so it'll be slow about getting itself up, but I'll do my best. P.S. Do bugs HAVE tongues?
Morrigan: ::glares at the unrepentant Morrigan:: That review, if you can call that monstrosity a review, was really bugging me earlier when I was scrolling down that page. You are by no means forgiven! ::glares some more:: But I'm not REALLY mad at you. Just a bit AGGRAVATED, if you know what I mean.
Maria: Ummm, Alanna doesn't currently have any prospective pairings. The sequel has become more ambiguous, and no romance has room in the next and final chapter. This story, unlike many convent fics, is really about the adventure, and not the romance. The next one will probably be a bit of both, if it ever gets there.
Bblond07: Yes, next chapter is the end. ::sniff:: I'm going to miss writing this story.
Lady Arianna: Because Jon is a pompous ass. For a more detailed explanation of my reasoning, go read my author's note in Chapter 1. Along the lines of geometry, I hate it too. I always manage to do two or three extra steps in my geometric proofs, thus wasting valuable homework and test-taking time. (Dang, I hope I got at least a B on that test. I need a good grade REALLY bad. Cross your fingers for me.)
Barrannilwen: I'm always afraid I'll add another extra letter in your name somewhere, but I'm too lazy to go back and check to see if I spelled it right. If I didn't, I'm sorry. Anyway. Hope you liked this chapter.
ThePenMage: If you didn't get a note, it was because you DIDN'T LEAVE A REVIEW! I REPLIED TO EVERY SINGLE REVIEW FOR THOSE LAST COUPLE CHAPTERS, AND IF I MISSED YOU IT WAS BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T THERE! You can even check in the reviews and see that a review for that chapter was CONSPICUOSLY ABSENT! So don't go yelling at ME. All right, I'm done shouting. Ummm, I would get one of the first three. I didn't like The Lioness Rampant as much as the first three, and if I were you I'd buy the first one, simply because I'm into the whole order thing, and it is helpful quite often when writing Alanna fics. But all of them are, really. So get whatever you like. Favorite Misty series? Ummm, I think I'd have to say Arrows of the Queen. Why? I have no idea. I just like the overall plots of all of those better than a lot of the other ones. I also really like the new Alberich book just out, Exile's Honor. Alberich is just so cool. Oh, but you weren't talking exclusively about Valdemar, were you? Outside of Valdemar, I like the Elemental Mage books, favorite of those three being The Gates of Sleep. And I also like the Elvenbane books she's doing with Andre Norton. Those're good. Enough books suggestions. You shouldn't've gotten me started, once I do I rarely stop. Consider yourself lucky I checked myself before I told you the entire contents of my voluminous bookshelves. Speaking of the volumes of bookshelves, I didn't measure precisely. I used a dollar bill, which as you should know is exactly six inches long, (amazing the things you learn in kindergarten, isn't it?) and counted how many dollar bills fit side by side on each side of a shelf. So it was actually a bit of guided estimation. My margin of error is probably less than an inch. In case you were wondering. You probably didn't want that much detail, but that's okay. Okay, the whole sequel thing is going farther back, for reasons I will explain further when I get down to my general parting author's note, okay?
Neona: Oh, I was SOOOOOOO tempted to write a fake chapter where Alanna died and didn't get resurrected just for that review, but I considered the chaos that would cause with confused fans who read my notes wrong, and decided to desist. I know you're disappointed. What's with depressing books in English class? Every single book the school requires us to read this year is depressing. Currently we're reading There Are No Children Here, which is nonfiction about the Chicago projects. We're just barely a third of the way into the book and already roughly fifteen people have died, and lots of people have been mugged or seriously injured, or something else bad along those lines. It's all the worse because it really happened. It's very depressing. Yes, before dawn. On an ideal day, I get up at 5:45 AM, but a lot of the time I have something else I have to do first, like finish my math homework or take a shower. I don't think I've gotten up before 2 AM this year, although last year I got up at 12:30 AM to do my book report, which I hadn't done practically anything on and was due fifth period that day. I got a 94% on it, too. But I was really, REALLY tired the rest of the day.
Punkpixie87: I forgive you, because you're so charmingly chagrined. (Do you like my little alliteration there?) Nope, no A/J, and no George in here either. Sorry. Ooh, a daemon. Probably a cat, because I'm very independent and elusive and good at slipping out of things. Like cats. You? I'm glad you enjoyed my Jon-dissing, humourous chapter. It was very entertaining to write all the fun jibes. All right, I will email once I get this puppy up, so you have no excuse for not reviewing. ::pins punkpixie with a stern look:: You don't even have the excuse of being out of town to miss four chapters.
Devilkitti8: Yeah, my schedule's been pretty viciously packed recently. Sorry for the updating slowness, but school is EVIL and takes away my writing time.
That's all of them. Wow. I'm all tuckered out. So, anyway. Lots of you have been asking about the prospective sequel. I'm not sure what's going on with that anymore. It was sort of making its way to the front of my brain, but now it's moved back. See, opal-dragon and I were thinking of collaborating on it, because we thought it'd be fun, but she's had some…problems, so she's not writing right now. So be extra-nice to her and make her feel better, kay? Especially if you're already a fan. So, that project is kind of at a standstill right now.
So, now that you are up to date on what's going on, you get to come and REVIEW! REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! Review, and maybe I'll write the next chapter faster. I haven't even started it, so I need LOTS of encouragment.