Shade & Sorceress (The Last Days of Tian Di, #1)(9)
“Our school holidays dinnay start for another two weeks,” said Eliza, surprised. “I should be at school today.”
They came to the lake through a cluster of tall oak trees and crossed a stone bridge to an island in the middle of it. Eliza could see bright fish leaving streams of light behind them in the clear, dark water of the lake as they swam to and fro. A sonorous chanting rose up from the white dome at the centre of the grounds and the fish all disappeared, diving deep into the water.
“That’s them doing their Magic,” said Missus Ash, with a frown.
~
Missus Ash clammed up when Eliza attempted again to raise the Xia Sorceress as a topic of conversation, but was more than happy to talk at length about the Mancers and the layout of the Citadel. She told Eliza that the south wing, from which they had emerged, housed the offices and guest accommodations, as well as the private chambers of the manipulators of fire.
“South is their point of the compass,” Missus Ash explained. “And as it’s summer, it’s their ascendancy, as they call it. You can fairly feel ‘em buzzing with power, aye. Now, just about the whole north wing is the Mancer Library – you’ve heard of that, no doubt! And that’s where the manipulators of water have their chambers too. East wing houses the Portrait Gallery and the manipulators of wood; west wing houses the Treasuries and the manipulators of metal.”
“But where are we?” asked Eliza. “I mean, we’re still in the Republic, nay? Is this Kalla?”
Missus Ash laughed brightly. “Dinnay rightly know! It moves about, they say, but lah, nobody leaves except the Emissariae. They go off to visit kings and queens and prime ministers and such, and every now and then they bring some important humans here. Nearly cost me my job when my boy Charlie caught some crickets from around the lake and set up a race through the Queen of Boqua’s guestroom.”
It took them most of the morning to go right around the grounds. Just beyond the Inner Sanctum the Mancers kept pigs and chickens and cows, and this fenced grassy area was no different from well-kept human farms Eliza had seen. West of this there was a broad single-story stone building that Missus Ash said was the forge. It had a large padlock on the door. They skirted anxiously past the dark tangled wood in the northwest corner and took their time circling back towards the south wing, ambling among fragrant orchards and carved marble fountains, flower gardens where roses the size of Eliza’s head hung heavy from their thorny stems, gurgling streams where bright fish shed light behind them, and an aviary in which every kind of bird imaginable clamored together in discordant song. As the Mancers were all busy chanting in the Inner Sanctum, they met no one on their walk. Missus Ash kept up a steady narration, as if she were a tour guide, while at the same time peppering Eliza with questions about her father, her mother, and her life until now. They returned to the south wing and Missus Ash gave Eliza lunch in the large, cluttered kitchen: hot sandwiches, a fruit salad, and a tall glass of frothy milk fresh from the Mancers’ cows. After lunch Missus Ash told Eliza to entertain herself, as she had work to do.
Eliza was glad to be left to her own devices. Her mind was a tangle of questions, and a slow-burning anger at her father was working its way through her. He had not prepared her for any of this. The way they had moved from place to place, the fact that she had never even met her Sorma relatives, the little he had told her about her mother – all this had new meaning now, and she wanted to be alone with her thoughts.
Nobody had told her where she could or couldn’t go, so she assumed she was free to wander where she pleased. It would take some time, but she decided to go right around the inside of the Citadel. In particular, she wanted to see what lay on the other side of its walls. In this, she was quickly disappointed. The only windows she found were narrow slits that faced onto the huge rolling grounds. None faced in the other direction. They could be in the middle of a city or on the top of a mountain, for all she knew. The hallways were all alike, vast and doorless, and so exploring them was not terribly exciting. Each window she came across, and they were few and far between, offered the same view of the grounds from a slightly different angle. She was looking out at the Inner Sanctum when a voice next to her said, “Lah, wonder if they found out who done it yet.”
Eliza nearly leaped out of her skin. Standing right beside her was a boy a few inches taller than she was, with dark, closely cropped hair, long-lashed brown eyes, and a friendly smile. His black eyebrows pointed up a little at the ends. She hadn’t heard him approach but quickly realized who he must be.
“Sorry.” He grinned. “Didnay mean to scare you.”
Embarrassed at having appeared so jumpy, Eliza said a bit gruffly, “I spec you’re Charlie.”
“And I spec you’re Eliza,” he said. “Ma told me you were exploring. Took me forever to find you.”
“This place is prize big,” said Eliza, then cringed. What an obvious thing to say!
“Have you seen the Portrait Gallery?” Charlie asked.
Eliza shook her head.
“You’re going in the right direction for it. The Gallery is good if you’re bored. I mean, it’s pretty much the only place to go if you cannay conjure a door. Can you conjure doors?”
“I dinnay think so,” said Eliza, remembering how the door to Kyreth’s study had appeared and disappeared. “No.”
“Me neither. There are a lot of places in this wing where you dinnay need to conjure a door, but they’re all just guest rooms and meeting rooms and the grand dining hall – places for human visitors. The only really good place without doors is the Portrait Gallery, aye.”