Read Trickster's Choice Online
Authors: Tamora Pierce
Tags: #Adventure, #Children, #Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Young Adult, #Romance, #Magic
Trickster's Choice
To Phyllis Westberg,
for knowing the best time to fire me and
for giving me the best rewrite advice
I’ve ever gotten:
read aloud.
In a time of fear, the One Who I Promised will come to the raka, bearing glory in her train and justice in her hand. She will restore the god to his proper temple and his children to her right hand. She will be twice royal, wise and beloved, a living emblem of truth to her people. She will be attended by a wise one, the cunning one, the strong one, the warrior, and the crows. She will give a home to all, and the kudarung will fly in her honor.
(att).
—From the Kyprish Prophecy, written in the year 200 H.E.
| Alan of Pirate’s Swoop | Alianne’s sixteen-year-old twin brother, a third-year page |
| Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau | the King’s Champion, lady knight |
| Alianne of Pirate’s Swoop | daughter of Alanna the Lioness and George, baron of Pirate’s Swoop |
| Arak | herding dog |
|---|---|
| Athan Fajering | disgraced luarin nobleman |
| Bonedancer | living Archaeopteryx (dinosaur bird) skeleton |
| Bronau Jimajen | non-royal luarin prince of the Copper Isles |
| Buri (Buriram) | former commander of the Queen’s Riders |
| Chenaol | free raka servant and head cook for the Balitangs |
| Cinnamon | Aly’s chestnut mare |
| Coram Smythesson | Baron of Tortall |
| Daine (Veralidaine) | half-goddess, called the Wildmage for her skills with animals, Aly’s adoptive aunt |
| Darkmoon | Alanna’s horse |
| Dilsubai Haiming | last raka queen of the Copper Isles |
| Dovasary (Dove) | Mequen’s half-raka daughter from first marriage |
| Dunevon | King Oron’s youngest child, son of third marriage, heir to Hazarin |
| Ekit | Visda’s brother, Tanair herdboy, raka |
| Eleni of Olau | Aly’s grandmother |
| Elsren | Mequen’s second full-luarin child with Winnamine |
| Falthin | part-raka bowyer at Tanair |
| Fesgao | raka man-at-arms who protects Sarai and Dove |
| Gary (Gareth the Younger) | heir to fief Naxen, King Jonathan’s principal advisor |
| George of Pirate’s Swoop | Alanna’s husband and Aly’s father, baron and second-in-command of his realm’s spies |
| Grace | herding dog |
| Graveyard Hag | trickster and primary goddess of Carthak, Kyprioth’s kinswoman |
| Gurhart | part-raka merchant, caravan leader |
| Hanoren | son of King Oron’s second marriage |
| Hasui | part-raka kitchen slave and royal spy |
| Hazarin | King Oron’s half brother |
| Ianjai | wealthy raka merchant family |
| Imajane | King Oron’s half sister |
| Imiary VI | second-to-last raka queen |
| Imrah of Legann | lord, knight-master to Prince Roald |
| Jafana | former luarin nursemaid to Petranne and Elsren |
| Jonathan of Conté | king of Tortall |
| Junai Dodeka | raka daughter of Ulasim, Aly’s guard |
| Kaddar Iliniat | emperor of Carthak |
| Keladry of Mindelan | Called Kel, lady knight |
| Kyprioth | trickster god |
| Landfall | Tortallan spy in Scanra |
| Lokeij | raka hostler for the Balitangs |
| Ludas Jimajen | second-in-command of the luarin invasion of the Copper Isles |
| Maggur Rathhausak | Scanran king and warlord |
| Maude Tanner | housekeeper and healer at Pirate’s Swoop |
| Mequen | exiled luarin duke, head of the Balitang family |
| Musenda Ogunsanwo (Sarge) | training master of the Queen’s Riders |
| Myles of Olau, baron | Aly’s grandfather, head of royal intelligence service (spies) |
| Nawat Crow | a crow who turned himself into a man |
| Numair Salmalín | powerful mage, Daine’s husband |
| Nuritin | Duke Mequen’s luarin aunt |
| Ochobu Dodeka | raka mage and mother of Ulasim |
| Onua Chamtong | horsemistress to the Queen’s Riders |
| Oron Rittevon | mentally-ill king of the Copper Isles |
| Pembery | part-raka, slave of the Balitang family |
| Petranne | Mequen’s first child with Winnamine |
| Pilia | Pohon resident, watches Ochobu’s house |
| Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie’s Peak | lord, Knight Commander of the King’s Own, Tortallan hero, known as the Giant Killer |
| Rihani | raka healer |
| Rispah | baroness of Trebond |
| Rittevon of Lenman | Leader of luarin invasion |
| Rubinyan Jimajen | luarin husband of Princess Imajane, Bronau’s older brother |
| Saraiyu (Sarai) | Mequen’s oldest daughter, half-raka, from his first marriage |
| Sarra | Daine’s mother, now the minor goddess The Green Lady |
| Sarugani of Temaida | Mequen’s first wife, raka, mother of Dove and Sarai, died in a tragic riding accident |
| Thayet of Conté | Queen of Tortall, co-ruler with her husband, King Jonathan |
| Thom of Pirate’s Swoop | Aly’s eighteen-year-old brother, a student mage |
| Tulpa | miller’s daughter at Tanair |
| Tyananne | widowed luarin noblewoman |
| Ulasim | free raka servant and head footman to the Balitangs |
| Veron | luarin sergeant in command of the Balitang men-at-arms |
| Visda | raka niece of Chenaol, goat herder |
| Winnamine | exiled duchess, Mequen’s second wife |
| Wyldon of Cavall | lord, district commander of Tortall’s army in the north |
| Zeburon | royal council member, enemy of Rubinyan |
from
The Luarin Conquest:
New Rulers in the Copper Isles
by Michabur Durse of Queenscove,
published in 312 H.E.
In the bloody decades before the year 174 of the Human Era, the Kyprish Isles were locked in strife. Rival branches of the royal house traded the throne on a number of occasions. In turn the crown had lost control over the warring houses of the
raka,
or native, nobility. Scholars said of those years that only the jungles prospered, for the trees and vines fed on the blood of the raka. During this time the Isles exported more slaves than imported them: victors sold their enemies into the Eastern and Southern Lands, only to enter slavery in their own turn when they lost the next battle.
Queen Imiary VI of the house of Haiming made repeated attempts to negotiate peace among the raka. Her efforts failed. She was overthrown after twelve years of rule. Her successor and murderer, Queen Dilsubai, also a Haiming, favored those nobles who supported her shaky claim to the throne, and imprisoned their rivals. The glorious days of the copper-skinned warrior queens of the Isles were over.
On the mainland, the pale-skinned easterners called
luarin
by the Kyprish people saw the disorder, and the wealth, of the Isles. Rittevon of Lenman, younger son of a lesser noble house in Maren, found opportunity in the Isles’ disorder. He raised funds and allies among the realms of Tusaine, Galla, Tortall, Maren, Sarain, and Tortall’s southern neighbor Barzun. For an army he summoned younger sons, adventurers, and mercenaries, all bought by the promise of the Isles’ wealth. With them came battle mages trained in the arts of war at the university in Carthak. Rittevon and his chief ally, Ludas Jimajen, son of a Tyran merchant clan, placed their souls in pawn for the gold that bought the services of their battle mages. They bought all the raka nobles they could in advance, promising them status when Rittevon sat the throne.
The first assault came in stealth on April 5, 174 H.E. The invaders struck not the capital at Rajmuat, where rival Haiming cousins fought over the crown, but the stronghold of the noble house Malubesai, on the southern island that bears their name. This most powerful clan was taken completely by surprise. Their homes were left in ruins, their warriors in mass graves, and their descendants in chains, all at the hands of the luarin mages.
For the next seven years, luarin ships and armies ranged the islands from Malubesang to Lombyn, from Imahyn to Tongkang. Lesser raka nobles and various clans, seeing how the wind blew, offered their allegiance to the conquerors. These became the lesser nobility of the Isles, allowed to retain lands, freedom, and lives, but taxed into poverty after their strongholds were destroyed. For the greatest raka nobles and the royal house of Haiming, the luarin offered only slavery or death. On Midsummer’s Day 181 H.E., the first Rittevon king was crowned as ruler of the newly renamed Copper Isles.
The domination of the raka people continued. The luarin nobles—once tailor’s sons and blacksmiths, landless younger sons and mercenaries—took for their new houses and fiefdoms the names of the land and the old noble houses. More luarin arrived to settle and do business. Marriage among the raka was encouraged for the luarin lower classes, producing a multitude of part-raka servants and slaves. The luarin were there to stay.
Like most who lose such struggles, the raka declared that only war in the Divine Realms explained the failure of their patron god, Kyprioth, to defeat the luarin. The luarin priests taught, and the raka people believed, that Kyprioth’s divine brother and sister, the war god Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess, had overthrown him. It was these gods, the priests of both races said, who took the right to govern the islands, while they gave Kyprioth lordship only over the local seas, to keep him occupied under their eyes.
Soon after the last battle of the luarin conquest, an ancient priestess gave voice not to her own prayers, but to the banished god Kyprioth. His promise was passed from raka slave to raka freeman, from raka mothers or fathers to their part-luarin children. Kyprioth told his people that the efforts of the luarin kings to erase the Haiming line had failed. One branch of the old royalty yet survived. The Queen’s prophecy is his promise that, from that surviving branch, the One Who Is Promised would come. She would be the Queen with two crowns, chosen by the god to lead the Isles and those who love them to freedom once more.
I
Parents
March 27–April 21, 462 H.E.
Pirate’s Swoop, Tortall, on the coast of the Emerald Ocean