The Constant Tower. Carole McDonnell
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Ephan said, but Lan remained at the door.
Psal grasped Ephan’s hand. “I will accompany Cloud.”
Ephan glanced at Psal’s deformed leg. “You’ll delay—”
“I will not.”
Psal’s two young brothers at her side, Hinis hurried toward Ephan. Fear for her own daughter and for Netophah’s sister lined her face. She hastily removed the leather cloaken from Lan’s shoulder and placed it across Ephan’s. Folded and strapped to the shoulder, the cloaken—when unrolled—was large enough to cover three large warriors—or two slender studiers and two careless little girls—and would prevent the night from separating them. “Bring my daughters home,” she commanded.
Out the studiers ran, the longhouse fast-fading behind them, second night riding hard at their heels. Psal’s weak muscles complained; his left leg and thigh hurt. Emon pharma, powerful though it was, only dulled his pain. Now, as he ran into the smoke, his lungs screamed in pain. Yet, he had to run. Then, a cry so small only a studier could hear it. As one, both turned eastward.
Ephan ran fast, faster, toward the cry. Second night and fire swirled about him, dust and smoke hid him from Psal’s sight. Psal hobbled behind, cursing his wretched leg, strengthening his heart against anticipated grief. Then he heard the girls’ voices issuing from a smoky clearing beyond a fiery thicket. The flames crackled all around. Past the blaze and into the clearing, Ephan ran. Out he came again, the fire licking at his heels, the girls in his arms coughing.
“Give Ria to me,” Psal said. Tears and smoke burned his eyes.
Ephan pushed Psal’s arm away. “I can carry both.”
Not in this smoke! Not with this fire! Not with the unmaking night fast approaching. “Give her to me!”
Another cry sounded from within the fire. A baby’s wail.
“The newborn? Is it still alive? Cyrt promised mercy!”
Ephan grasped Psal’s hand. “Hurry! Away!”
Psal shook off Ephan’s hold, ran into clearing. The child lay gasping amidst the brush. Psal lifted his dagger, held it high above the child’s struggling chest. He could not strike. Out he came again, the blaze nearer. “Ephan! Please! Be merciful! Kill it for me.”
Ephan’s mouth dropped open.
“You should have killed it when you found it!” Psal shouted.
“The fire rages!” Ephan yelled.
“Where is your mercy? Like Cyrt, you would allow it to burn in this fire!”
Ephan placed Tanti on the ground. Hasting, silent, he raced back to the infant, knife drawn. A moment passed. Ria leaped onto Psal’s back. The child’s wailing stopped. Ephan scrambled from the smoke, wiped his bloodied dagger against his tunic and returned it to its sheath. Immediately, Tanti climbed into Ephan’s arms.
Suddenly, strength and power flowed through Psal’s damaged body. How fast he ran—and without pain! As if the wind bore him along. How fleet his feet! As if tower music pulled them in its wake. Like arrows shot forth from a bow, they flew from that forest, the darkening smoke pursuing.
At the longhouse, Psal’s youngest brother greeted him. “I watched from the rampart, Firstborn! How fast you ran!”
“As fast as any other.” The next to the youngest shouted, leaping as children do.
“Faster! If I had not seen it, I would not have believed it!”
Psal, too, could not believe it. He laughed, blushed when his father smiled. His mother smiled also. A smile not wide enough to remove the memory of her disdain, yet this rare tiny thing lifted Psal’s heart.
He set his sister on her feet. “I should’ve let the Voca find you,” he shouted. “They keen for abandoned towers and lost little girls like you!” He pointed through a window to the rising moons. “Did you not hear Lan’s horn?” The girls glanced at each other—guilt and relief on their faces. Fear as well. His heart softened, his voice too. “I teased.”
His sister threw her arms around his shoulder, kissed his neck. “We didn’t want the child to die alone.”
Tanti burst into tears. Her he did not tease. Because she was Netophah’s sister. Because she was a little thing who could not bear being teased. He only squeezed her shoulder gently.
Cyrt sat near the hearth, eating of a wild boar caught earlier. Psal limped toward him.
“Why was the child made to linger?” He shoved Cyrt. “Even the animals and the fire did not wish to harm the child.” He turned to the others. “Only you, members of its own clan.…” He caught his mother’s gaze, closed his mouth. Whatever glory gained by finding his sisters, he had now lost again.
CHAPTER 2
JOURNEYING TOWARD THE TRUCE FESTIVAL
Like all keening rooms, the one in the royal longhouse enclosed the tower’s base. The tower, its door, its internal stone staircase winding upward, the watchtower in its spire—all were Psal’s sanctuary. Except for those days when Nahas, his chief captains—Lebo, Seagen, Cyrt—and his stewards entered it for council meetings. As they did now.
The king leaned his elbows on the oval council table. “This harvest festival comes just in time. All this squabbling about regions. Raids committed by the Peacock Clans, burnt fields, looted longhouses, wounded stewards.”
“A lasting truce with the Peacock Clans is possible.” Gaal stood to the left of the tower door. “We lost much in the past year. Our stewards battle more often than they plant, and when they do plant and sow, the harvest is stolen by Peacock Clans. We stewards fight as well as any true Wheel Clan warrior. But…to defend one’s self all day against enemy longhouses knowing help cannot come until the next morning…it is a hard thing. Tsbosso and the other chiefs use their domestication science to steal our livestock and raid our orchards. And we answer them with words? Nahas, the Peacock Clans do not fear our words.”
Lebo, the oldest of Nahas’ warrior, drew his fingers through his cropped gray hair. “As things are, we’re on the verge of a war. I fear war even more than the neutral clans fear it.”
“There must be something we can give to the Peacock Clans.” Gaal spoke to Nahas but gave Psal a sly wink. “A peace marriage, perhaps?”
“Gaal,” Nahas answered, “do not give the boy foolish hopes. Although Tsbosso is much-honored among the Peacock Clans, one truce marriage would not suffice. The Peacock sub-clans are too numerous, scattered, and cantankerous.”
“The truce with the Voca has held these sixteen years,” Cyrt said. “If we—”
“Truce or not,” Lebo said, “when that vindictive queen presented us with the peace child, the seal of the truce between her clan and ours, I trembled at her coldness. Pale as the snow, she is. And lovely. But the blood in her veins is like the icy floes of the Wintersea. And just as unpredictable.”
“Ezbel’s anger is misplaced,” Cyrt’s adopted brother Seagen, Dannal’s son, said. He winked at the king then tousled Ephan’s hair. “A good man between her legs and she’ll lose her anger.”
“That I cannot say,” Nahas said. “But I doubt Tsbosso wants a good man between his legs.”
That elicited much laughter from all but Gaal. He spoke solemnly as he looked at the tower crystals in their sockets, “How many new discoveries, culled from their own observances, and improved upon the teachings of their old masters, have our studiers made! And yet, we must wait until morning to aid an attacked longhouse!” He stood in front of the primary keening tree, which was called the Lesser Light, and spoke to it. “Lesser Light, you who steer this tower, and you other keening trees as well, can you not share your secret with us? Is it so difficult? Why so silent? Can you not reveal more of yourself to your stewards and your studiers?”
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