Dark Mist Rising (31 page)

Think of others
, both my father and Mother Chilton had told me.

‘I did see the princess, Jee. She was sitting by her caravan with her women. And perhaps you shall see her tomorrow, when we begin walking over the mountains. She will be carried in a wonderful throne by four stout men, and if she parts the curtains around the throne to look out, she may smile at you.'

In the night gloom of the caravan I could not see his face. But I heard his soft indrawn breath as he imagined this.

‘Well,' Tom said, oblivious, ‘I hope they're giving her enough food and a warm cloak and a bath. No, wait. Not a bath. If she smells bad enough, maybe that bastard Tarek won't go near her. I wouldn't mind a bath myself, believe it or not. And Jee, you look filthy and smell like horse turds. No princess better catch sight of you or she'll void her stomach.'

‘Tom,' I snapped, ‘go to sleep now.'

‘Why do you sound so testy? I only said—'

‘Go to sleep!'

‘Begin instruction,' the Young Chieftain said at our first session.

Never was there an atmosphere less conducive to instruction. The tent was full of people. Two guards in full battle armour stood on either side of Tarek, who lounged on a three-legged stool while I stood before him on the bare ground. The guards pointed their
guns
straight at me, the witch who had some terrible magic at his disposal – who knew what he might do to their leader?

A log blazed in the fire pit, sending weird shadows over the guards' scowls and Perb's nervous face. Outside, it rained, a steady drumming on the hide roof that sounded for all the world like hooves from beyond the natural sky. Even Tarek's lounging looked uneasy, a cover for nerves stretched like lute strings.

But I had prepared. ‘My lord.'

He scowled and would have spoken, but this too was part of my preparations. I would be in control here, no matter what I must do to become so.

‘I know you use no such titles, my lord. But this is instruction from
my
realm, not yours. We must follow the discipline of my art.
Its
discipline.'

Perb translated. I had chosen the word very carefully, had even memorized it in Tarek's speech. The day before Perb had said that the savages' most important value was discipline.

Tarek nodded. He did not look belligerent. I pressed on, and now I spoke in Tarek's language. ‘My lord, no other person must hear my lesson – only you and I. Dismiss your guards and translator. My discipline. I am
antek
.'

If he was surprised that I spoke his language, he concealed it well. For a long moment he gazed at me. Then he waved at all three men: ‘
Klef
.'

The guards obeyed instantly, although the stare they gave me could have wilted mountains. Perb burst into passionate speech I could not follow. Tarek repeated calmly, ‘
Klef
,' and the look in his blue eyes made the guards seem like house cats. Perb kleffed.

‘
Jad
,' Tarek said to me. ‘Begin.'

I took a stone from my pocket, clutching it to keep my fingers from trembling. So far I had succeeded. It was not very far. But
he
was obeying
me
. The savage leader of a great army and an unknown kingdom, obeying Roger Kilbourne, the Queen's fool. I sat cross-legged on the ground and gestured for Tarek to do the same. He did so without hesitation. Partly this must be due to a life of discipline – that superbly conditioned body had not happened by chance – but partly it was his own nature, so self-confident that he did not have to insist on the trappings of rank, nor try to impress others. In another life, it occurred to me, I might have liked him.

Tarek was shorter than I but longer in his muscled upper body, so that our heads were at the same height. I set the stone on the ground between us. Earlier in the day we had marched past a mountain stream, and my guard had indicated that Tom and I should strip and bathe. Jee had joined us. The cold water had stung like needles, and it had taken an hour of walking to return sensation to my frozen limbs, but from the bottom of the rocky stream I had pocketed this stone. Half the size of my fist, it was white, shot through with veins of some pink mineral and smooth from years in the water.

In my halting Tarekish (I had to give the language some name) I explained that this stone was a link between here and Witchland. To use it, one must train the mind: discipline. The first step was to learn to gaze at the rock and think of nothing else –
nothing at all
– for a full minute, while chanting a magic word.

‘What is this word?' Tarek said. His tone remained cool but eagerness flickered in his eyes.

‘The word is George.'

It took us five minutes before I declared myself satisfied with his pronunciation. I had chosen the word deliberately: The savages had trouble saying the ‘j' sound. Five minutes of instruction time were thus used up.

‘I begin,' Tarek said. ‘George, george—'

‘You are not saying it with the right beat,' I said, tapping my fist on the ground. ‘Magic words must be said exactly.'

‘Tell me again.'

Another five minutes. Tarek did not show annoyance. Discipline.

‘Good. Now look at the stone. Think of only the stone.'

‘George,' Tarek murmured, ‘george, geor—'

‘You are thinking of something else, not only the stone.'

For the first time he looked surprised. ‘You know this?'

‘Yes.' Of course I knew that: no one can think of only one thing for a full minute. Other thoughts inevitably wander in.

‘You can see into my thoughts?'

‘No. I know only that your thoughts are not solely on the stone.'

‘How do you know this?'

‘I am a witch.'

He nodded and returned to staring and murmuring. Time and time again I interrupted him to say his thoughts had wandered. Each time he admitted to this, and without anger. My admiration for him grew.

‘Enough for tonight,' Tarek finally said. ‘I will keep this stone.'

‘No. It must stay with me.'

He nodded, accepting my judgment. All at once I knew what
antek
meant: one who produced something both valuable and difficult. Defence and conquering from soldiers; children from mothers; learning from
anteks
. An
antek
ruled in his own realm.

Roger the scholar.

‘Goodnight, my lord,' I said.

He accepted the foreign title. ‘Goodnight,
antek
.'

Back at our fire, Tom inched himself closer to me and whispered, ‘Did you do it?'

Poison Tarek, he meant. I whispered, ‘No. George wishes us to wait until we have a sign from him that our rescuers are nearby. For our escape, you know.'

He nodded. Everyone here – unlike in The Queendom – seemed to accept my judgment. Everyone but me. With my nonsensical instruction, I was effectively making a fool of the leader of a great army, one who already had ample reason to kill me. How long could I sustain this travesty?

‘George is taking his own sweet time getting here,' Tom grumbled.

‘George, george,' Tarek murmured, and then on the seventh night, ‘I think I have done this,
antek
. For a full minute.'

‘Yes, you have.' The warning in his blue eyes said that I must move forward with my instruction. And perhaps he
had
been able to keep his thoughts on the stone for a full minute. Discipline. ‘You are ready for the next step, my lord. Tonight, you must dream about this stone.'

All calm vanished. Tarek stood so quickly that the unused three-legged stool behind him was knocked backwards. Instantly a guard strode into the tent,
gun
pointed at my head. Tarek demanded of me, ‘What do you know of dreams?'

‘I ... I ...'

‘Are they the pass to Witchland?' He used the word for the high mountain pass, through which we had marched wearily that very day.

‘Sometimes,' I said. What answer would save me? Desperately I searched Tarek's face for some sign of what to say. In turn, his blue gaze raked my face, and almost I could feel it, sharp as knives.

Then he relaxed. ‘
Klef
,' he said irritably to the guard, who left. Tarek paced a bit – unusual for him – then abruptly returned to sitting on the ground. ‘Tell me when dreams are a pass to Witchland.'

‘Only for
anteks
,' I groped even as my mind filled with images of my mad sister, speaking to me in the terrible dream that, mercifully, had not recurred for many nights.

‘Only for
anteks
,' Tarek repeated. ‘Good.'

‘My lord,' I said, trying to regain control, ‘are you troubled by dreams?' I had to use the word for ‘attack'; Tarekish did not seem to contain any other words for trouble.

‘Not I,' he said. ‘But my queen.'

Stephanie. Attacked by dreams. And Lady Margaret had also mentioned the princess's nightmares. I got out, ‘What are these dreams? Who comes in them?'

‘Another queen. Her slave Mar-gar-ait—' he stumbled over the name, ‘—says that this other queen is also a young girl, crowned in the manner of your people, and she tells my bride, “Die, die, die.” And Staif-ain-ee wakes screaming.' He frowned. ‘She is too old for such fear. And she is a queen. Queens do not scream.'

But I had stopped listening to him.

‘
Die, my baby die die, my little one, die die ...' And Roger the
child listened to the monstrous song and nestled closer, a smile
on his small face and the pretty tune in his ears.‘Die, my baby,
die die, my little one, die die ... ...'

Tarek said, ‘Is this a witch attacking Stef-ain-ee in her dream?'

Yes
. ‘No.'

‘Then the children of your people are badly trained.'

I said nothing. Let him think the little princess was badly brought up rather than have him suspect the truth. My mad sister had invaded Stephanie's dreams. Stephanie must have, after all, inherited the talent for the soul arts that her mother and grandmother had lacked, but that Mother Chilton said was possessed by Stephanie's great-grandmother. But Stephanie's was a talent untaught and uncontrolled. A wild card. And the talent must lie strong in her, since my sister had sensed it in that other realm.

All at once I was afraid for the little girl, more afraid than even before.

Tarek gazed at the white stone. ‘Then I must dream of this stone?' he said, gazing at it. The subject of Stephanie had been dismissed; she was merely a spoiled, badly raised child with fears unbecoming to a queen.

‘Yes, you must dream of this stone.'

‘You will show me how to cause such dreams?'

‘I will show you what you must learn to cause such dreams.' Lurching onward, I put together a jumble of instructions, scarcely knowing myself what I said. Tarek listened to all my nonsense, organized it in his practical mind and said he would practise this before he slept, in order to dream of the white stone.

‘
Klef
,' he said finally, and I was taken back to my fire.

‘Peter,' Tom said, in a state of high excitement. ‘Great news! I have met a girl!'

‘That savage bastard – the guard who watches me when you're gone – allows me much more freedom now. Well, I'm tied, ain't I? And he probably thinks The Queendom is too far now to go back to all alone, and he might be right at that if ... Anyway, he was casting dice with two other soldiers – I wish they would let me play! Ten to six odds I could beat them all. But I watched yesterday for an hour and the rules—'