COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 2013 by Carole McDonnell

      All rights reserved.

      *

      Published by Wildside Press LLC.

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      DEDICATION

      For my mother, my husband, and my sons.

      SPECIAL THANKS

      Thanks to Becky Kyle, Jessica Butler Fry, Marvin Katzoff, for reading, critiquing and supporting this novel.

      Thanks to Carla Coupe, John Betancourt, and Wildside Press for publishing me.

      OPENING QUOTATIONS

      And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

      —Minnie Louise Haskins

      *

      I was blind, but now I see.

      John 9:25

      THE CONSTANT TOWER

      The Beautiful One from my clan, is dead.

      The day takes us.

      If to forest, no rain.

      If to desert, no sun.

      For he was rain and sun,

      A cloud bringing all my comfort.

      In our Permanent Home, the gathered clans greet him.

      ‘His words were daggers, brave and swift,’ they sing.

      ‘His heart was kind and noble.

      In the world of the living, distress.

      But for us, joy.

      The day turns,

      His longhouse searches for him. But he is safe here in our home.’

      —Psal’s elegy on the death of his friend, Ephan.

      CHAPTER 1

      THE STUDIER OF WORLDS

      Now my prince, in my former rendition, I spoke of Ephan’s deeds. Then you asked me to tell the tale again, and this time to tell you Psal’s story. I will play my part. But you must play your part as well. For you it is given the task of forgetting all you have heard of the previous tale and to keep your heart and mind on Psal. Can you do this?

      Inside the Nahas longhouse, see then: Psal. A boy of about fifteen. A prince too, like yourself, a studier of worlds for his clan. But primarily, a boy.

      He had risen early before the moons waned and, as usual, was thinking of his sweetheart Princess Cassia, the daughter of Chief Tsbosso, his father’s great enemy. For six months, King Nahas had forbidden the marriage. Confused, longing for Cassia, Psal knew only this: he breathed easier and walked more joyfully when among the Peacock Clan, the clan to which the gentle, lovely Cassia belonged.

      “How wonderfully the Peacock women use twigs to frame their faces!” he extolled. “And how elegant the decorated shells in their hair! They’re such simple and natural beauties. Don’t you think so? Unlike our women who use pretense and distance so our warriors will prize them! Aren’t the women of the Peacock Clans charming in their naturalness?”

      Ephan’s apricot-colored eyes peered at him through thick locks of white hair. “Breasts and tightly woven hemp skirts do have a natural effect. But she was very bold that sweetheart of yours, wasn’t she? For all that ‘simplicity’ of hers.”

      “Cassia is a chief’s daughter. Tsbosso’s daughter! Why shouldn’t she be bold in letting me know she wanted me?” He spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “She allowed me to kiss her the last time we met.”

      “Yes, you told me. Several times.” Ephan picked up the gray parchments used to track towers. “But she didn’t allow you to lie with her, did she?”

      “A chief’s daughter can’t just lie with anyone.”

      “If this girl wants a lover whose features are like those of her own people, the Firstborn son of King Nahas is not just ‘anyone.’”

      Footsteps light and soft—a woman’s—hurrying down the corridor momentarily pushed thoughts of his beloved away. They stopped outside the keening room. The intricately-embroidered curtained screen in the doorway was pushed aside. Psal looked up from his parchments, outside his daydream: Narena—the midwife of the longhouse—entered. She stood peering down at Ephan, her adopted son, and at Psal, the studiers of the royal longhouse.

      “Betri’s time has come.” She pushed her thick, unkempt, graying hair from her face.

      “Why tell us of this?” Psal asked her. “You’re the midwife.”

      Even if Psal was only a studier, he was Firstborn of the clan; Narena should’ve showed him due respect, but she answered curtly. “The birthing’s difficult, and Chief Studier Dannal is asleep.” She looked from Psal to Ephan, then back to Psal again.

      Dannal was not asleep, of course; the old studier’s listlessness and stained teeth were only two of the telltale signs that the Tomah pharma had enslaved him.

      “Boys,” Narena said. “Hurry! Which one will it be?”

      Ephan lifted the parchments—pale hands over paler hair—and waved Psal toward the door. “I’m tracking towers. This one’s mind is on love. Let him bring new life into the world.”

      * * * *

      Bright morning; the moons fled. Psal clutched a newborn boy in the hollow of his left arm. The infant’s palate was cleft, the nose split in two.

      With his right hand, Psal attempted to ward off Cyrt—a chief captain, his father’s close kinsman. A jagged scar on Cyrt’s right cheek proclaimed the warrior’s bravery in a past skirmish with a Peacock Clan, but now such bravery vaunted itself against an innocent child. Cyrt turned to the others; some gesture unseen by Psal caused laughter to fill the longhouse. Dagger drawn, Cyrt wheeled about to look at Psal again. Smirking, he tossed the weapon from left hand to right. Back and forth, the blade flashed rhythmically, like oil lanterns flickering in the morning light.

      Tears trailed down Psal’s cheek. Again, Cyrt’s relentless teasing. The ten years away from his clan studying with the Master of the Wintersea should have given him a thicker skin.

      Nevertheless. He turned to his father. “King Nahas, Father. Queen Hinis, Mother. Allow the child to live.”

      King Nahas stood near the hearth; his face ruddied and shamed by his son’s weakness. Near a window, Queen Hinis—regal and cold she was—threw Psal a scornful look. The boy sunk into himself. “Firstborn,” the queen asked, “will you grow teats and feed it?”

      “I expect he will,” Cyrt said, and the queen smiled.

      His back against the wall, Psal clutched the child with both hands now. “The other clans, Great Queen. Such damaged little ones…they allow to live. Mother, this one will live. This one should live.”

      He could give no valid reason for wanting the child to be spared. Certainly a vague hope of the child’s future usefulness was not enough to disdain the Wheel clan’s age-old edict. Male children born ill, damaged, or deformed were killed. Mercy generally did not triumph over the cruel tradition. Psal’s father—nature-blessed Nahas, chief of the Nahas longhouse, king of all the Wheel Clans—had mercifully allowed Psal to live.

      Yet once again, Psal told himself, the error of that mercy is being shown to all.

      Psal pushed past shame. “They will not think you weak, Father. Nahas, this child might prove valuable to our clan. As I have, Father. Am I not valuable, Father?” Tears clouded his sight as he waited for the king’s answer.