A bent man carrying a mop and bucket hobbled across the room and stood before the cook. “What can I do for you this fine day?” he asked.
“Take this boy,” Cook snarled, shoving the child to the scrubber’s side, “and give him food and work. He doesn’t speak the language, but I’m sure you can make him understand scum scrubbing, eh?”
Smiling, the old scrubber put an arm around the boy’s shoulder and gently guided him back through the room. Relieved to be out of the big cook’s grasp, the child went without protest. The world was all strange smells and sounds, and his toes and ears smarted painfully as they warmed. The urchin swallowed hard, trying to force down tears that would brim despite his best efforts.
Suddenly the scrubber bent and whispered in his ear: “Did you follow the blue star?”
The urchin jumped, backing away and staring at the man. For he had understood the scrubber’s question, spoken in his own language.
“Cé Imral!” he replied eagerly. “Yes! I followed the star, and it led me here, and I am trying to find Etanun and . . . and please, sir, are you he? The Silent Lady delivered your message, and she is even now captive in the dungeons below the Spire! If she is to be saved, I must bring the heir to Fireword! I must—”
“What is that foreign rodent babbling about?” Cook roared from his place by the fire.
The scrubber looked up mildly. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he replied.
“Well, shut him up, will you?”
But there was no need. The child stared at the scrubber, his mouth open but still. Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe, in desperation, he had only imagined that he understood the old man’s speech.
Maybe he was trapped in this dreadful, freezing world without a soul to help.
By evening, the storm had blown past, leaving a quiet, cold world behind. Stars filled the heavens like snowflakes, waiting to fall.
A lonely guardsman patrolled the wall overlooking the inner courtyard on one side and the drop to the river far below on the other. It was a useless watch, he always felt, for no one would invade Gaheris from this side, even were invasion imminent. But he must follow orders, and he must march while the rest of Gaheris fell into sleep and dreams.
Suddenly, rising from the darkness in the courtyard below, came a voice faint as a whisper.
Open the gate! Let us through!
The guard shivered and hurried along the wall. Sometimes the nights played dreadful games with a man’s fancy.
2
SO THE TWELVE CAME TO THE DOORS OF OMEZTLI, and their voices carried from the ground to our high perch above.
“Cren Cru commands. Send us your firstborn.”
I clutched Tlanextu’s arm in terror. I could not bear to lose him! He took my hand and held me gently.
Then we saw a powerful form rising up from Itonatiu Tower. It was Citlalu, our father. He flew across the city, his wings like a roc’s, blocking the sunlight from view they were so vast! He landed before us, and I shivered with fear and love at the sight of him, for he was King of Etalpalli, bound to the realm by his own blood, by the beat of his heart. He was strong as the nation itself . . . stronger, I thought. The pinions of his wings were like daggers, and he shouted down to the Twelve below:
“Begone to your master! You will take none of mine into that Mound, not while I have life yet coursing through my veins!”
His voice shook the foundations of Etalpalli. I thought the Twelve would scream with terror and flee the storm of his gaze.
They did not. They merely turned and retraced their path to the Mound and the circles of bronze.
But the next day, they returned. Once more they called up to the heights of Omeztli: “Cren Cru commands. Send us your firstborn.”
Once more my father denied them.
Something about the smell of books made the library feel warm even when it wasn’t. A low fire burned on the hearth, and morning light began to creep through the narrow windows. It felt, oddly enough, like home to Leta. Indeed, it was more of a home to her than Aiven had been.
Now months into her covert education, Leta was still very much a beginner. Nevertheless, the Chronicler sometimes requested her help with the laborious task of cataloguing all the piled-up scrolls and loose parchments not yet copied into bindings. He asked her to sort them according to scribe, which required not so much reading skill as ability to recognize individual handwriting.
But sorting provided her ample opportunity to explore more deeply into the written word. She suspected she was better at it than the Chronicler let on. What’s more, she suspected he was tremendously proud of her.