The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

He was examining me as well. After a moment, his grin widened. Im Sieh.

Two syllables. Sieh Arameri?

Just Sieh. With a childs boneless grace, he stretched his arms above his head. You dont look like much.

I was too tired to take offense. Ive found it useful, I replied, to be underestimated.

Yes. Always good strategy, that. Lightning-quick, he straightened and grew serious. Hell find us if we dont keep moving. En!

I jumped, startled by his shout. But Sieh was looking up. A moment later, a childs yellow kickball fell into his hands.

Puzzled, I looked up. The dead space went up several floors, a featureless triangular shaft; I saw no openings from which the ball could have come. There was certainly no one hovering above who could have thrown the ball to him.

I looked at the boy and suffered a sudden, chilling suspicion.

Sieh laughed at my face and put the ball on the floor. Then he sat on it, cross-legged. The ball held perfectly still beneath him until he was comfortable, and then it rose into the air. It stopped when he was a few feet above the ground and hovered. Then the boy who was not a boy reached out to me.

I wont hurt you, he said. Im helping you, arent I?

I just looked at his hand, pressing myself back against the wall.

I could have led you in a circle, you know. Right back to him.

There was that. After a moment, I took his hand. His grip left no question; this was not a childs strength.

Just a little ways, he said. Then, dangling me like a snared rabbit, he floated us both up through the shaft.

* * *

There is another thing I remember from my childhood. A song, and it went How did it go? Ah, yes. Trickster, trickster / Stole the sun for a prank. / Will you really ride it? / Where will you hide it? / Down by the riverbank

It was not our sun, mind you.

* * *

Sieh opened two ceilings and another wall before finally setting me down in a dead space that was as big as Grandfather Dekartas audience chamber. But it was not the size of this space that made my mouth gape.

More spheres floated in this room, dozens of them. They were fantastically variedof all shapes and sizes and colorsturning slowly and drifting through the air. They seemed to be nothing more than a childs toys, until I looked closely at one and saw clouds swirling over its surface.

Sieh hovered near as I wandered among his toys, his expression somewhere between anxiety and pride. The yellow ball had taken up position near the center of the room; all the other balls revolved around it.

Theyre pretty, arent they? he asked me, while I stared at a tiny red marble. A great cloud massa storm?devoured the nearer hemisphere. I tore my eyes from it to look at Sieh. He bounced on his toes, impatient for my answer. Its a good collection.

Trickster, trickster, stole the sun for a prank. And apparently because it was pretty. The Three had borne many children before their falling-out. Sieh was immeasurably old, another of the Arameris deadly weapons, and yet I could not bring myself to dash the shy hope I saw in his eyes.

Theyre all beautiful, I agreed. It was true.

He beamed and took my hand againnot pulling me anywhere, just feeling companionable. I think the others will like you, he said. Even Naha, when he calms down. Its been a long time since we had a mortal of our own to talk to.

His words were gibberish strung together without meaning. Others? Naha? Calm?

He laughed at me again. I especially like your face. You dont show much emotionis that a Darre thing, or your mothers training?but when you do, all the world can read it.

My mother had warned me of the same thing long ago. Sieh I had a thousand questions and couldnt decide where to begin. One of the balls, a plain green one with bright white poles, went past us, tumbling end over end. I didnt register it as an anomaly until Sieh saw it and stiffened. That was when my own instincts belatedly sent a warning.

I turned to find that Nahadoth stood behind us.

In the instant that my mind and body froze, he could have had me. He was only a few paces away. But he did not move or speak, and so we stared at each other. Face like the moon, pale and somehow wavering. I could get the gist of his features, but none of it stuck in my mind beyond an impression of astonishing beauty. His long, long hair wafted around him like black smoke, its tendrils curling and moving of their own volition. His cloakor perhaps that was hair, tooshifted as if in an unfelt wind. I could not recall him wearing a cloak before, on the balcony.

The madness still lurked in his face, but it was a quieter madness now, not the rabid-animal savagery of before. Something elseI could not bring myself to call it humanitystirred underneath the gleam.

Sieh stepped forward, careful not to move in front of me. Are you with us yet, Naha?