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personal information. She smiled at him apologetically and walked on, robes
and hair swinging.
"Where are we going?" he asked Nikolai in a whisper.
"To the house of the Ban of Hours," Nikolai said, "She keeps the Sidhe records
of the city. I will introduce you to Emma, and then I will go on my
pilgrimage."
"You didn't mention a pilgrimage."
"You're welcome to come," Nikolai said. "I go to the mountains to witness the
Snow Faces. The season approaches."
Michael followed them through an orderly grove of small, thick-trunked trees.
They kept to a brick pathway with low railings on each side. "Who is Emma?" he
asked.
"You'll see," Nikolai said, his face expressing the tenderest sentiment. He
touched his cheek with his fingers and shook his head. "You must promise& "
"Promise what?"
Nikolai shook his head violently. "Never mind," he said, whirling and pointing
his finger. "Did you see?"
Ulath walked on, ignoring them.
"See what?"
"One of the Ban's Arborals. They tend her library."
"The trees?"
Nikolai nodded gravely. "Come. We mustn't lag."
The house of the Ban of Hours was made of wood, magnificently carved and
fitted. The roof was high and conical, eight-sided for the first half of its
height, then broken into three progressively narrower sections with fewer
sides, the highest having three. A tower at the apex was made of brass and
carried a silver crescent moon. Two wings protruded from beneath the central
structure's conical roof at a forty-
five degree angle, flanking a triangular courtyard. Flowers grew in
disorganized profusion in the courtyard; roses of all colors, including blue,
scented the air and also seemed to warm it. Ulath glanced back at Michael.
"The Ban of Hours has lived here for ages," she said. "Since long before the
city was built."
"They moved the house here," Nikolai said.
They took a path beside the flowers and entered the Ban's house through a
tall, narrow black door at the apex of the triangle. The interior of the
rotunda was surrounded by slabs of black marble veined with green. These
blocked direct light from windows set in alcoves in the outer wall. Soft,
whispering voices issued from behind the slabs. Michael felt dozens of
feathery touches on his aura. He gently rebuffed them and the voices stilled.
Nikolai stood by Ulath in the center of the room. Both seemed to be waiting.
"The Ban of Hours is very powerful," Nikolai said. "There is confusion in her
presence, and time is not the same. Do not be afraid. She will not harm us."
After a few minutes, Ulath shuddered and bowed her head. A tall female dressed
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in white entered from an adjacent hallway and approached them across the
smooth stone floor, seeming to glide more than walk.
From high in the tower's interior came a buzzing. Michael turned away from the
glare of the Ban's presence and looked up. The lines of the tower spun, filled
with golden bees. His thoughts became
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he watched the insects. The Ban took his hand and led him behind a marble slab
and up a spiral staircase to the second floor. At the end of a hall lined with
brilliantly illuminated windows, they came to a wood-paneled room with a floor
cut from the single bole of some huge tree. At the center of the floor's
concentric graining was a wide, low basin of water. The basin was attended,
but Michael could not see by whom or what. The Ban asked him to wash his
hands, and when he did so, an incredible perfume filled the room.
"We are in the presence of a poet," she said, taking his wet hands and leading
him into another adjacent room.
The walls of this room were draped with fine white linen and the floor was
covered with woven reed matting. The Ban of Hours held her arms out to him,
her hands glowing with warmth and magic. Michael went to her and she folded
him to her breasts. "Yes, there has been pain," she said, "and error. It is
the way of both our homes. But you know me, do you not?"
He did, and softly, he began to weep.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Contents - Prev / Next
Hours later, fed and left alone in a comfortable sleeping chamber at the end
of the southern wing, Michael removed his book from its pocket and hefted it
in one hand, frowning.
He had met the Ban of Hours but he did not remember what she looked like.
Ulath he remembered clearly enough, and all the other details prior to the
meeting. But he recalled neither the ban's appearance nor the sound of her
voice. He had an impression of a tall Sidhe female dressed in white, but what
sort of dress long, flowing, pale or diaphonous?
No matter how hard he tried to recall, his memory was no more specific than
that. Probing Nikolai's aura had proven fruitless; such probes were not very
good at eliciting information from recent events, and
Nikolai had evidently not been in on much of the meeting to begin with.
Michael's room held a brass bed with a quilted comforter, a bowl of water on a
marble stand and several framed paintings of scenes from Earth. It took him
some minutes to realize that the paintings were genuine Corots, with one
Turner. So the Ban of Hours was a connoisseur of things Earthly including,
it seemed, himself.
He undressed and washed himself with water from the basin. Again, the rich,
heady smell filled the room
And like a catalyst, the smell opened his gates of memory sufficiently wide to
release one segment.
The Ban raised her eyes and regarded Michael with a warm smile, dimples
forming just beneath her prominent cheekbones. Her eyes were inclined slightly
upward, almond-shaped and deep-set, sapphire blue flecked with silver. "You
are determined to go to the Isomage, no matter what the cost?"
Michael nodded.
"No matter that it makes you the pawn of those you know nothing about?"
He nodded again, less certain. The Ban sighed and leaned forward across the
inlaid vine patterns of a table top. Between them was a bowl of sliced
prepared fruits.
The segment ended. He dried himself with a linen towel and crawled under the
soft bedclothes. The
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