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Shadows of Prophecy
Rachel Lee


What will happen when the assassins are defeated…? For Tess Birdsong and her companions there will be no warm homecoming. The death of one evil exposed the beating, seething heart of another far more dangerous power. Together they must go to Anahar, to help free the Anari people from their enslavers, and purge the darkness in their own hearts. But that ancient city holds more than the key to Anari liberation. In its temple lie the secrets of the Ilduin, women of almost godlike power.Tess, who remembers nothing of her past, is terrified by the power of her Ilduin blood. But Tess's mind conceals more than fear. There is war, and pain, and death, and anguished grief. And somehow she must face it all again, guided only by the shocking secrets of a temple as old as time itself…








Praise for




RACHEL LEE


“A suspenseful, edge-of-the-seat read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Before I Sleep

“Shadows of Myth is a fantastic fantasy….

Rachel Lee, known for her terrific romantic suspense tales,

provides a wonderful good vs. evil fantasy.”

—The Best Reviews

“Rachel Lee deserves much acclaim for her

exciting tales of romantic suspense.”

—Midwest Book Review

“Lee crafts a heartrending saga.”

—Publishers Weekly on Snow in September




Rachel

Lee

Shadows

of Prophecy







www.LUNA-Books.com


All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.Г .r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

MIRA is a registered trademark of Harlequin Enterprises Limited, used under licence.

Published in Great Britain 2006

MIRA Books, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,

Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1SR

В© Rachel Lee 2006

ISBN 9781408976197


For the rays of light in our lives:

our four children and our editors and our agent,

who have shown infinite patience in this year of Job.




Contents


RACHEL LEE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Epilogue

COMING NEXT MONTH













1


Giri Monabi crept silently over the sand, his dark eyes focused on the patrol below. Across the steep valley, his brother Ratha moved with equal silence, invisible in the dark night. It was not the homecoming the brothers had imagined.

The Bozandari patrol moved with the casual arrogance born of power, twenty-four men in two columns walked the road, swords sheathed, shields slung over their backs, helmets hanging from sword hilts, equipment clanking with each step. Their voices were loud against the stillness of night, the voices of men who did not anticipate trouble and believed they would be trouble’s master if it arose.

The hatred of three generations of servitude burned in Giri’s heart as he watched the soldiers. Almost without thought, his hand moved to his sword, fingers tightening in anticipation of dealing quick and ugly death. But he knew that, despite their casual manner, these men were skilled soldiers, and easily a match for Giri and his companions. There would be another time to wreak vengeance.

He began to slither backward, knowing that Ratha would be doing likewise at this very moment, having reached the same conclusion. Even an alert guard would have been hard-pressed to see the movement, and these Bozandari were hardly alert. Giri and Ratha had shadowed them for nearly two hours now and knew that the patrol leader had not even taken the most basic of security measures. There were no advance or flank guards to scout the route or surrounding terrain. It was as if they were walking down the streets of Bozandar itself.

Giri had moved perhaps ten yards when he felt the prick of the sword against his side. He froze and heard the almost silent warning.

“Annomendi.”



Tess Birdsong sat beside the fire, staring into the flames as the bitter wind blew down from the north. Three of her fellow travelers, Archer Blackcloak and his two black-skinned Anari companions, had vanished into the desert to keep guard. A strange desert, dotted with strange plants that grew out of sandy soil, creating eerie shapes among the tumbled boulders.

There was much in this world, she thought, to keep guard against—at least in the weeks since she had awoken in the midst of a slaughtered caravan with no memory of who she was or how she had come to be there. Indeed, she wasn’t sure if the name she was using was truly hers. All she knew was that it had felt right somehow when she had been asked her name.

Other than that, all she knew about herself was that on her ankle there was a tattoo of a white rose. Sometimes she looked at it, wondering what clue to her past it might contain. But tonight it was too cold for such musings, and too much threat had pursued them from Lorense, where they had slain a mage.

Something hooted, echoing in the silent forest. One of her companions? Or some beast that had not fled with all its fellows?

She knew not, and the shiver that passed through her came not only from the bite of the wind.

Across the fire, Tom Downey slept the sleep of untroubled youth. He alone of the party had been spared the need to kill back in Lorense, when they had defeated the mage Lantav Glassidor. Tom had seen many ugly things, but he bore none of them on his conscience.

Unlike herself. Tess looked down at her hand, at the healing scar there. Those were memories best left in the dark recesses of the mind until they were needed.

Nearer to her sat her friend Sara Deepwell, an innkeeper’s daughter who was proving to be one of the legendary magical women known as Ilduin. As was Tess herself, though she still rebelled emotionally at the idea.

Sara slept rarely now. Her mind and heart were too burdened with grief.

With a sigh, Tess stirred the coals of the fire, watching pinpricks of burning ash rise to the darkened sky. They were headed to war, yet she doubted that either she or Sara was ready for such a thing. Horror behind them, horror ahead of them.

Suddenly Tom sat up, instantly awake and alert. “Something is happening,” he whispered.

But around them the desert remained silent.



“Annomendi.”

Announce yourself, spoken in the clipped, northern Anari dialect. Giri, still frozen, replied carefully with the formal address of greeting.

“Giri an Monabi-Tel, ahnorren tir al sarlohse il Anari gelehsahnen.” Giri of the Monabi Clan, returning of free will to the service of the Anari.

“What have you seen?” the man demanded, prodding Giri with the sword.

“Of you and your companions, I have seen nothing,” Giri replied. “Of these men below, I have seen much—and much to despise.”

“How many are you?”

“My brother is across the valley, and my friends await us behind the bend of the road. We are returning to help, to fight for our freedom.”

The man let out a satisfied grunt. “Well, a fight there will be. And if you and your friends are true to your words, it shall begin for you tonight.”

Giri spread his fingers in the Anari gesture of peace. “May I roll over and know into whose service I have come?”

The sword moved away, and Giri slowly rolled onto his side, looking up into midnight-black eyes. The man was definitely northern Anari, his features slightly rounded, his skin that fraction of a degree paler.

“Jenah of the Gewindi Clan,” the man said. “Now rise and lead me to these friends of yours. One ambush would be more than sufficient for this night.”

Jenah extended a hand, and Giri grasped it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. With a low whistle, Jenah signaled whatever companions might be nearby, then walked at Giri’s side as they made their way back along the road. Within minutes, Giri heard Ratha’s almost silent hiss, echoed a moment later by Archer.

“Be in peace,” Giri said, keeping his voice low. “I come with Jenah of the Gewindi Clan.”

Archer and Ratha rose from behind rocks, seeming to materialize only an arm’s length away. Archer’s eyes were hard and cold. “By what right do you capture my companion and friend?”

“By the right of a warrior who dislikes surprises in the night,” Jenah said. Even in this dim light, Giri could see Jenah’s face harden as he looked at Archer and took in his much lighter skin. “And any companion and friend of your kind is hateful to mine.”

Giri didn’t know whether Archer would detect the deadly threat in Jenah’s choice of words. He spoke quickly. “I am grateful that you slew me not, Jenah Gewindi. Now slay not my friends, for you know naught of them, naught of their motives, and I dare say naught of greater forces that placed us in this chance encounter tonight.”

Before Jenah could respond, Giri drew his sword and held it by the blade, with an infinitesimal dip of his head. “On pain of Keh-Bal, I place myself and my friends in your service.”

“On pain of Keh-Bal shall you serve,” Jenah replied, taking the sword by the hilt and turning it around before offering it back to Giri. “Come quickly now. There is dark work to be done.”

“I must first let the rest of my company know where we are going,” Archer said. “By Giri’s oath, I will return.”

“Can he be trusted?” Jenah asked.

“With more than your life,” Giri replied. His tone left no room for doubt or argument.



Tom Downey peered into the darkness, trying to make out a shape to go with the approaching sound, a sound that was too deliberately noisy to seem like a threat. “Who goes there?”

“’Tis only me,” Archer said, appearing out of the night. “We are discovered.”

Behind Tom, Sara Deepwell and Tess Birdsong stiffened.

“Is there trouble?” Sara asked.

“Aye, there will be soon,” Archer said. “Giri was met by another Anari, who apparently intends to ambush the Bozandari patrol we’ve been shadowing. He has pledged us to the fight, as well.”

Tess looked up with almost hollow eyes. “We knew there would be more fighting. But so soon?”

Archer shook his head. “Milady, I cannot choose the time and manner of the Anari rebellion. Giri and Ratha are committed to its cause, and a noble cause it is. We have already sworn to help them. Apparently that begins tonight.”

“We follow you, Archer Blackcloak,” Sara said, drawing her sword. “Where you lead, we will go.”

Archer’s long black cloak was tossed on the night wind, a fold blowing back over his shoulder to reveal the gleaming hilt of his long sword. For an instant, just an instant, Tess thought she saw a shimmer about him, the ghost of a younger, happier man. Then the shimmer vanished and he was once again the hardened warrior.

“The three of you must stay here,” he said flatly. “The horses must be protected, and I need you, Sara and Tom, to guard the Lady Tess. I sense her part in matters to come will be of extreme importance. Regardless, we cannot risk two Ilduin needlessly.”

Both Sara and Tom seemed about to voice a protest, but then nodded. “Very well,” Sara said, sheathing her sword once more. “Mayhap we can do more as healers this night.”

“Of that,” Archer said, “I have no doubt. But should we three fall, you three must return to Whitewater.”

Tess abruptly rose to her feet. “Don’t fail,” she ordered.

A low chuckle escaped Archer, and he bowed. “I shall do my very best, Lady.”

Then, this time moving with silent stealth, he disappeared back into the shadows among the rocks, lost to view.

Tom looked at Sara and Tess. “I think we should follow him.”

But before anyone could respond, the shadows moved again, and they found themselves looking at the drawn swords of five dark-skinned Anari. They were surrounded.

“You will stay here,” one of them announced, “until your companions have proved themselves to be true.”

Tess sighed and dropped back down beside the small fire. “They’re true enough,” she muttered. “Truer than this night is cold.”

Tom squatted beside her, as did Sara, holding their hands out to the warmth.

“Truer,” Tom answered beneath his breath, “than one among our captors, I fear.”

Sara nodded. Tess remained motionless, feeling the tingle and burning begin in the palms of her hand. Something built within her, and for the first time she had an inkling of what it was. Slipping her hand within her cloak, she grasped at the bag of twelve colored stones nestled between her breasts.

“Aye,” she said presently. “Evil is near.”



Archer, Giri and Ratha climbed the ridge alongside the northern Anari. Soon they reached its ragged, bare top and peered over once again at the column of soldiers marching so arrogantly down the darkened road.

Jenah spoke to them. “We will attack in three groups after they enter the defile ahead. One group will attack the column’s head, another its rear. The third group will be archers, firing from above.” He eyed Archer’s quiver. “You will be with the third group. Ratha and Giri will divide among the others.”

Ratha spoke. “My brother and I always fight together.”

Jenah’s face hardened. “Not this time. I do not yet trust you fully.”

“A fine way to treat an oath of Keh-Bal.”

“The oath is meaningless if the witness to it is dead.”

Ratha and Giri both stiffened, but before they could respond to the insult, Archer waved them to silence.

He turned to Jenah. “Have you searched any farther, or have you followed only this column?”

“This column,” Jenah said. “As have you.”

Archer gave a short nod, acknowledging that the Anari force had been aware of his party for quite some time. “Yes, and since darkfall, their behavior has been troubling.”

Jenah frowned. “How so? They are behaving exactly as they did all day.”

“That is what concerns me.”

Jenah eyed him narrowly. “Why would they be baiting a trap? They know nothing of my group.”

“Perhaps not,” Archer replied. “But perhaps caution is the order of the evening.”

“Gewindi-Tel has committed to this attack,” Jenah said. “It was decided among the elders six days ago. I will not shame my Tel by cowardice, and your companion has sworn himself to my side. We attack.”

Archer nodded. “The oath is sworn and will be met. However, there is evil afoot in this night. My companions and I have faced much, braved much, endured much. If we are to die this night, let us die together.”

After a long, silent stare, Jenah nodded. “Very well. You will join the rear attack force. And Keh-Bal upon you if your deeds match not your words.”



As the moon settled on the far mountains, Ratha watched the Bozandari patrol reach the head of the defile through which they had been marching, break ranks and prepare to make camp. “Not long now,” he whispered.

“Aye,” Archer said. “Jenah is a wise leader. He will wait until they are settled, then fall upon them. I only pray that he has not been led into a trap.”

Ratha studied Archer’s eyes for a long moment, then nodded slowly. In the past six years, he had seen much in those eyes. Never had those eyes led him astray, and oft had they kept him from danger. Yet even after all of that, Ratha’s cultural memories were strong, and it seemed odd to be standing beside a white man as his brothers prepared to do battle against white men. The man Ratha had been would not trust a man like Archer in such a battle. The man he had become could not imagine a more worthy companion.

Below him, the Bozandari had settled. Ratha knew that Jenah and his men were moving silently into the valley like a red adder stalking a desert hare, slipping from rock to rock, shadow to shadow, preparing to strike their prey. Even as the thought crossed his mind, he saw the other Anari around him rise into low crouches. He rose with them, moving with patient, deadly purpose to close the rear of the trap.

With a shrill, trilling cry, Jenah signaled the attack, and forty Anari rose from the rocks to fall upon their nearly sleeping enemy. Ratha spotted a wide-eyed Bozandari soldier reaching for a sword. No sooner had his hand closed around the hilt than a blade flickered out of the night and severed his head, sending him into eternity with that same wide-eyed stare.

Now the rear force was upon the enemy, as well, and Ratha, Giri and Archer took up their familiar close battle tactic, blades flashing in synchronized efficiency, parrying and killing in a relentless rhythm of destruction. Archer’s world narrowed to the space immediately in front of him, Bozandari blades flashing in the cold blue moonlight, his breath smooth and even as he matched strides and movements with his companions, the three of them a single entity with but one awful purpose.

Suddenly, in the distance, a sputtering fire arced into the air, lighting the valley in an eerie red hue. Three more flares burst upward, trailing a graceful tail of sparks, before bursting into flame high overhead. Cries of horror told the rest of the tale.

“It’s an ambush,” Archer hissed.

“Yes,” Ratha replied. “We have been led into a trap.”

Dozens of Bozandari seemed to materialize beyond the mouth of the defile, falling upon the Anari with the same sudden savagery that only recently had engulfed the members of their patrol.

Off to Ratha’s right, Jenah screamed commands above the din of battle, trying to reorient his men to the new threat, but too many were still engaged with the Bozandari in the patrol. Blood flowed all but invisible in the red light of the flares, evident only as glistening geysers erupting from throats, bellies and the stumps of freshly hewn limbs. Screams of pain and rage mixed with the clang of metal upon metal, drowning out any attempt to restore order to the shattered Anari.

“Massacre,” Ratha muttered, still hacking his way forward with his companions. “They will all die.”

“We must echelon right,” Archer said. “We will move toward Jenah. He must know that Giri has kept his oath.”

“Aye,” Ratha said. He glanced over to Giri. “Echelon right, on Lord Archer’s command.”

Giri nodded and, at a single word from Archer, the three men pivoted an eighth-turn in perfect unison. Step by step, slain foe by slain foe, they angled across the melee toward the Anari leader. Ratha stepped into the belly of a still-thrashing Bozandari soldier, noticing the dying man only to the extent necessary to keep his own balance and stay with his companions.

Soon they could see Jenah’s back, almost within reach, as the tall, broad man tried in vain to protect two of his wounded brothers from another wave of Bozandari soldiers. The Bozandari fought with patient intensity, shoulder to shoulder, shields nearly overlapped, save only for enough space to deliver a scything thrust with each step. Anari courage and honor stood no chance against such training and discipline. It was only a matter of time.

Ratha and his companions reached Jenah at the same instant as the Bozandari wave.

“Jenah!” Archer cried. “Fall in behind us!”

Jenah shook his head. “I must die with my Tel.”

“Then you are a fool!” Ratha said, breathing heavily as his sword whirled against the Bozandari ranks. “What profit is your death except to our enslavers? You are betrayed, and to find the betrayer is now your honor.”

“My honor is my Tel!” Jenah cried, thrusting at an enemy at the very moment that his foot slid across a blood-slicked rock.

Jenah slipped to his knees, his sword lowered for just long enough to allow a Bozandari blade to slash across his back. The blade would have cleaved his spine, had he not risen up to thrust his own sword through the attacker’s throat. But Ratha knew the wound was crippling.

“Blood have you shed for your brothers,” Ratha said. “Your honor is fulfilled. Now fulfill its greater burden and fall in behind us. Revenge for Gewindi-Tel you will have, but not on this treacherous night.”

Fury warred with sorrow in Jenah’s eyes, but after a moment he nodded and circled behind them. Archer gave the command to withdraw, and the three began to step backward over the bodies of Bozandari and Anari, their feet and legs sticky with blood, arms and swords still swirling, keeping their opponents at bay.

Finally they reached the confines of the defile, where the greater Bozandari numbers could not be brought to bear. Recognizing this, and satisfied with the carnage they had wrought, the Bozandari withdrew into the darkness, leaving Ratha and his companions drawing huge gulps of dry air as they finally lowered their swords.

Ratha heard a cry behind him and turned as Jenah slumped to the ground on hands and knees, his head hanging limply, blood dripping from his chin.

“Come,” Archer said. “Let us take him to Lady Tess. Perhaps she can give him aid.”

Ratha nodded, bile rising in his throat as he looked out at the carnage in the dying light of the setting moon. “But she cannot aid them all, Lord Archer. By the gods, she cannot aid them all.”




2


Surrounded by armed men, the small group at the fire could do and say little. Tess felt Sara’s hand steal within hers, grasping warmly. She looked at the young woman and saw not fear, but determination to weather this somehow. Tom, too, looked determined, but he was staring into the fire as if he saw something there other than the leaping flames.

“Tom?” she called quietly.

For long moments he neither moved nor answered. Finally he said, “Patience. Evil will betray itself.”

The counsel to patience was their only option. It wasn’t as if the three of them were in any position to fight five armed warriors. But Tess felt there was more in Tom’s statement. He did that every so often, making a remark that sounded more like formal prayer than mere speech. At such moments, Tess expected to look over into the face of a wizened old man and not one who had barely reached adulthood.

“It is a gift,” Sara whispered, as if reading Tess’s thoughts. “He is a prophet. A seer.”

Tess was startled. True, she remembered little enough of this world. But she couldn’t forebear asking, “Do such exist?”

“Aye,” Sara answered. “Few they are, rarer than glazengold. One of the greatest is in Bozandar. Tales told at my father’s inn say that when foreknowledge overtakes him, he cannot even see the present, speaking only of the future. Oft his words cannot be understood except in hindsight.”

“Hmm,” Tess said, feeling an inexplicable skepticism. “Very useful. So easy to predict the past.”

Sara’s eyebrow arched, and then she shrugged. “’Tis like our powers, Tess. They terrify me. I know not what I do, or how I do it. Do you?”

Tess shook her head. “It feels like riding an untamed horse. It goes where it wills, and I but follow.”

Sara nodded. “But for all that, we cannot deny that it is real. At times, I think it is our curse.”

They both fell silent as they remembered the mage Lantav Glassidor, burning alive as each drop of Sara’s blood touched him as Tess ordered him cleansed. As evil as the hive-master was, neither of them was comfortable with the way in which he had died…even if he had kidnapped and tortured Sara’s mother these past six years.

Tess was troubled, too, by the scar on her palm. Somehow she had stopped Tom’s sword in midair as he went to kill Lantav, but she had not touched the instrument. Yet afterward this reddened scar had appeared on her palm, as if she had reached out and grasped the blade. It was beginning to fade, but it raised questions about what she had done and how. And why her action had affected her physically.

Tess turned her hand over and showed it to Sara. “I did not touch Tom’s blade.”

Sara nodded and turned over her hand. It bore an identical scar. From her palm had dripped the blood that had burned Lantav. “Maybe we Ilduin share each other’s ills.”

Tess stared at Sara’s scar, and a chill crept down her spine. What was going on here? How tightly were the Ilduin bound? And in what ways? She closed her fist. “I do not know what to think.”

“Nor I. Perhaps we share the scar because we shared the experience.”

“Perhaps.” After all, Tess thought, it had been she who had told Sara to cleanse Glassidor.

And little enough they had accomplished in the end, for as they had traveled south to the Anari lands, they had heard rumors of other hive-masters like Lantav, mages who melded the minds of many into one mind.

And worse, they had glimpsed the dark power behind Lantav. Something not of this world, Tess thought. Something greater than any power in this world. Something she doubted she and Sara were strong enough to face.

Tom seemed to draw his attention back from the fire. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I was daydreaming.”

“We’re all exhausted,” Sara said reassuringly. “I wish I could lie down and sleep.”

Tom smiled faintly. “Not with all those swords pointed at us.”

Tess returned his smile, then twisted to look at the encircling Anari. Giri and Ratha had predisposed her to like their kind, but someone or something among these men filled her with a dark sense of cold, oily evil. One among them belonged to the enemy. One among them was a traitor to his kind.

She wished she could tell which one, but that sight was denied her. Instead she was gifted only with the amorphous ugly feeling.

Suddenly the night sky filled with a red flare to the south of them. All of them gaped, never having seen such before.

Then Tess felt something else. Her head bowed, and her heart ached. “Many are dying,” she said. “Too many.”

Sara gripped her hand and squeezed it. “I feel it, too,” she said in a hushed voice. “The battle has begun.”

Two hours felt like two days as they waited for the return of their companions. Tess’s thoughts kept returning to Acher, leader and friend, a man with strength to lean on. A man who still distrusted her, yet protected her. She closed her eyes, willing his safe return along with Giri and Ratha.

Eventually the sound of heavy, uneven footfalls could be heard approaching across the rocky terrain. The three immediately rose to their feet, and their captors turned their attention and their swords to the sounds.

Moments later, as if born of the very darkness itself, Archer appeared. Giri and Ratha followed, between them holding yet another Anari, who appeared to have trouble keeping his feet. Farther yet behind them came another handful of dark men. Then no more.

“We were the ones ambushed,” Archer announced. “Most of Gewindi-Tel were slaughtered.”

The man being steadied by Ratha and Giri lifted his head suddenly, and the heat of anger blazed from him, almost palpable in the night. “We were betrayed!” Jenah spat. “Betrayed by one of our own.”

Tess hurried toward him. “You are injured!”

“Aye, Lady,” Giri said. “A sword gashed his back as he fought to defend his brothers. Let no one question his valor on this night.”

“Let me see.”

But Jenah straightened himself and shook off the support of Ratha and Giri. “I need no white healer. I need a sword. I want to know who betrayed us!” Then, his last dregs of strength used up, he crumpled to his knees.

“Lady,” said Giri urgently, as he, Ratha and Archer formed a protective triangle around the fallen leader, swords drawn. Tom and Sara drew their weapons, as well, and stood back to back.

Tess needed no further encouragement. She ran forward to the fallen Anari, hoping against hope that she could find in herself whatever it was that had saved a young lad in Derda who had been all but dead from cold and starvation. She had no idea what she had done then, but everyone had been sure she had been the cure.

Now she knelt and laid her hands on the fallen man’s back, against the hot, wet blood, feeling the slash beneath her palms. She closed her eyes, imagining as vividly as she could that the wound beneath her hands was knitting together, muscle to muscle, skin to skin. Her palms grew hot, as if they were aflame, and she nearly cried out.

Moments later, the world faded into blackness.

* * * *

A healer such as the world hadn’t seen since the White Lady, Theriel, Archer thought, as he watched over the unconscious Tess and the steadily improving Jenah. With his own eyes he had seen flesh heal beneath her hands. Now there was nothing but a scar left across Jenah’s back.

But the cost to Tess had been great. As the sun began to rise, painting the red desert in a myriad of fiery colors, he cradled her head in his lap and waited for her to awaken.

All the other Anari, both those who had been in battle and those who had stood guard here, had put away their swords and sat, waiting. Tom and Sara watched Tess with worried eyes. Ratha and Giri alone remained on guard, ready to protect their company and Jenah.

Tess stirred, a murmur escaping her. At once Archer stroked her golden tresses. “Be still,” he said. “You are safe.”

For a fleeting instant a smile fluttered over her lips, then vanished. He had seen her smile so rarely, he realized. But none of them smiled nearly enough these days. The savagery of their time in Lorense, and the horrors of the deaths of thousands of refugees in Derda, had left a deep mark on all of them.

Tess’s eyes fluttered open and met his, blue meeting gray for an electric instant. Her mouth formed a surprised O; then she abruptly sat up. At once she raised a hand to her head.

“Who hit me with the hammer?” she asked.

“’Twas the healing,” Archer reminded her.

Recalled to what had passed, she looked toward Jenah and appeared as stunned as any of them by what she saw. “Oh!”

At that moment, Jenah rolled over onto his back with a groan. His eyes opened suddenly, taking in the dawning day, and Giri and Ratha standing guard. “What happened?” he demanded.

“Sit up and see,” Giri said. “The Lady Tess healed you.”

Jenah pushed himself up gingerly, as if he did not believe what he was told. But upon discovering he no longer hurt, he leapt to his feet and looked around.

“Thank you,” he said, bowing to Tess. “And please forgive my words, Lady. My people are not used to such kindnesses from yours.”

“You were in pain,” Tess said, smiling. “People oft say things they do not mean. Think nothing more of it.”

But then his gaze returned to his fellows.

“So this is all that remains of Gewindi-Tel, the proudest of the northern clans.” His voice was already sparking with anger again. “A handful of stalwarts and a traitor.”

The men who had fought beside Jenah last night stirred not at all. Their faces were as impassive as if they had been carved from the stone the Anari worked with such unparalleled skill. The five who had remained to guard the campsite were not quite as impassive, however. Though they betrayed little except by the flicker of their eyes, it was obvious that they knew suspicion fell upon them.

“You have nothing to say?” Jenah asked.

“I wish only that I had died in my brother’s place,” one of the men said. “First came he from my mother’s womb, but only by the moments it took for me slip out after him. I spent my life chasing him. If now I must follow him into death, then so be it.”

Jenah seemed to weigh the man’s words for a long moment, then nodded. “Be at peace, Jahar Gewindi. Your brother died at my side, valiant to the last. Let not your mother lose two sons on this day. Already too many mothers will bear that burden.”

Archer watched as Jenah interrogated each of the men, one by one. As long as he had spent in the company of Ratha and Giri, he could not yet read the faces of Anari except in the most obvious of moments. What Jenah sought, and whether he was seeing it, Archer had no idea.

“It is not safe to remain here,” Tom said, quietly. “Master Jenah, I know you are angry, and that one thought alone burns in your mind. But we are not far removed from the Bozandari who killed your kinsmen last night. There will be time enough to sort this out once we have found a suitable resting place.”

“And what of a resting place for my brothers?” Jenah asked. “Am I to leave them in the sand, to be picked over by the vultures, their bleached bones to be swallowed up into the vast, empty memory of the desert?”

“We cannot bear them with us,” Archer said. “And the lad is right. It is too dangerous for us to remain here. The gods will embrace the spirits of your fallen, whatever may befall their bodies.”

“Anari never leave their dead behind,” Jenah said.

“There is much that Anari have never done,” Archer said. “But I fear you will need to learn to do most of it before this war is over. Come, let us away, for the safety of those who remain in your Tel, lest all your mothers weep in vain.”



Tom walked beside Sara, occasionally reaching over to grasp her hand. The sun was nearing its zenith, and even in the middle of winter, faint shimmers of heat rose from the red sands. Their horses walked beside them, pausing from time to time to graze from the occasional bunches of pale green grass or the leaves of the bushes that dotted the landscape.

“This is a beautiful land,” Tom said. “But a hard land, as well.”

“Yes,” Sara said. “It is a land to make one’s heart weep—with beauty and with pain.”

“That feeling I know well,” Tom said, giving her hand another squeeze. “I feel it every time I look at you.”

“Now, now,” Sara said, suppressing a smile. “Speak not every word that is in your heart, Tom Downey, lest I come to long for the days when you spoke none at all.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly looking away.

“No!” Sara replied. “Tom, you really must learn to recognize when I jest. I like your words. So many nights I lay in bed, wishing that you would voice your thoughts, afraid I was mistaken when I read your eyes. Now I have no such doubts, and that lightens the burden of my heart.”

“Then let me lighten it more,” Tom said. “For in all the world, there is no soul with such sparkle, no other face that I would wake to, no other voice that I would carry into my dreams. Please do not ache for the past, Sara Deepwell. Whatever you have done, you have done for the love of all that is good and right in this world.”

“I would that your words were enough, Tom. But I bear the stain of my blood, the stain of my heritage, it seems. When I heard tales of the Ilduin in my father’s inn, they were tales of lightness and beauty, hope and joy. Never did I imagine that I would be one of them. And never did I imagine that Ilduin blood would be so dark.”

He could hear the aching loss in her words, and he knew she was once again seeing the dead and dying forms of her mother and the dark mage Glassidor. If only Lady Tess had not stilled his blade, he would have spared Sara this burden. Instead he had stood mutely by as the final act was played out in soul-chilling screams.

“You are of love, Sara Deepwell,” he whispered. “That is all I know of such things. But it is enough.”



Near the front of the small column, Tess rode beside Jenah, whom she had insisted take Archer’s mount. She rode at Archer’s demand, for he was not sure she was yet strong enough to walk. And, she thought, he might well be right. A deep, aching fatigue seemed to press through every muscle and sinew in her body. She longed for sleep but could not bring herself to relax.

“You should rest, Lady,” Jenah said quietly. “Your body cries for it.”

“As does yours,” Tess replied. “And yet you also hold yourself awake. So we are both stubborn.”

Jenah laughed, and for an instant Tess saw once again the infinite beauty of the Anari people. She had seen it in the fleeting moments when Ratha and Giri joked amongst themselves. They were a people who, when the cares of the world could be set aside, seemed to glow with an inner joy that shimmered in the iridescent blues of their black skin. They were, she thought, the most beautiful people she had ever seen.

“What?” Jenah asked.

“Oh,” Tess replied, “I was just thinking how lovely your people are to behold. If the finest gold were spun into human form, it would not approach the Anari.”

“You mock me,” Jenah said, though the warmth in his eyes belied the accusation. “We are but humble desert stonemasons.”

“And I but a simple blond woman,” she said. “Take good words where you find them, Jenah Gewindi. I fear you have heard too few.”

“That much is true,” he said, smiling. “And thank you, White Lady, for your kindness. Someday, perhaps, you will tell me by what grace of the gods you were sent to me in my time of need.”

“I do not know whether it be a grace of the gods or a curse of men,” Tess said. “Perhaps some of both. The road to this place has been long and filled with heartache. But here we are, and on we go.”

“Tell me of your journey?” he asked. “Perhaps it will distract me from the ache in my back. While you have saved my life, I still feel the pain of the blow.”

“I am sorry that my healing was not more complete,” Tess said. “But of my journey, there is both too little and too much to tell. I awoke in the wreckage of a slaughtered trade caravan, far to the north, with no memory of who I was or whence I came. Archer and his Anari companions came upon me and took me to Whitewater, where we met Tom and Sara. Then we set out together to learn who had murdered the caravan, and that led us eventually into the city of Lorense, where we confronted the dark mage Lantav Glassidor and slew him.

“After that, we came south, for Ratha and Giri had heard of the uprising here and wanted to lend their swords to the cause. We skirted the edge of the Deder Desert, dodging Bozandari patrols, until we reached the borders of the Anari lands and came upon you last night. And that, my friend, is my journey.”

Jenah studied her for a moment and nodded. “There is much that you do not tell me, Lady Tess. I accept that, for I can see in your face that what you tell me is true. And your friends certainly bore true their oath last night. Perhaps in time I will learn more of you and your story. For now, however, I accept that you are here of free will and with pure heart.”

“I thank you for your trust, Lord Jenah.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I am hardly a lord, my Lady. I was simply chosen by my Tel for this mission. Chosen, it seems, to lead my brothers to their deaths.”

“Bear not that burden alone,” Tess said. “From what Archer has told me, you did all that could be asked for, and more besides. Your brothers’ blood is not on your hands, but on the hands of he who betrayed you. And in time, we will know who that is.”

“That time will be soon now,” he said, looking up at a jagged ridgeline. “Beyond that rise lie the villages of Gewindi-Tel. And there the truth will out.”




3


At the top of the rise, Giri looked out at the village below and paused for a long moment. Tess came up beside him and saw the glistening in his eyes.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’ve waited a long time to see a telner, m’Lady. I thought I would never see one again.”

“Gewindi-Telner,” Jenah announced with a sweep of his arm. “Home of Gewindi-Tel, my clan.”

Tess at once noticed the odd configuration of the village: a large, round central building surrounded by a plaza that seemed to mimic flames spreading out from the sun. From there radiated three winding paths that led to smaller round buildings, each of which was set amidst even smaller stone buildings and fallow fields.

“All Anari villages are constructed in this form,” Giri said. “It symbolizes the end of the First Age.”

“What does it mean?”

Giri’s eyes clouded with sorrow. “In the end,” he said quietly, “the gods were so angry with the Firstborn that they tore the world asunder. It is a reminder that the world today is but a small part of what it once was.”

Tess looked down on the village with new appreciation, then realized they had been spotted. Even from this distance she could see the villagers beginning to gather, facing in their direction.

Jenah sighed heavily, but when he spoke, his voice was taut with anger. “Let me ride ahead and tell the story, lest the lady and her party be misunderstood.”

Giri nodded. “A good idea, cousin. I will ride with you as a token of our good faith.”

Jenah nodded. Giri turned, and in one sleek movement he swung into his saddle. “Wait here,” he said to Tess. “I’ll come when it is time.”

Tess was surprisingly ready to dismount and just rest for a few minutes, even though she had been dreaming of the comforts of civilization for these many hours past. She had hardly begun to dismount when strong hands clasped her waist and aided her.

Archer. She turned and managed a wan smile. “Thank you.”

He gave a slight bow of his head. “Let us make a small fire and eat something. Perhaps Lady Sara will be good enough to create one of her stews. You need to regain your energy, my Lady.”

Since events in Lorense and the discovery that Sara, the innkeeper’s daughter, was one of the fabled Ilduin, she had become Lady Sara. Tess herself had been referred to as such much longer, but she was still finding it difficult to accept the obvious implication: that she was set apart from her fellows.

She turned her gaze from Archer and looked down the long slope. Jenah and Giri were riding slowly, as if they dreaded delivering the message they bore. And in the town below, new stillness seemed to indicate that the people guessed what that message would be.

Sara and Tom seemed only too glad for the distraction of preparing a meal. Ratha gathered some wood and laid the fire before returning to his position against a rock. It was clear he was still on guard, though now it was against the traitor among the Anari. The remaining Anari, a group of less than twenty, merely sat stone-faced, awaiting their moment to return home…and their moment to be judged.

While the horses grazed among the sparse vegetation, Tess sat crosslegged on the brow of the ridge, looking down on the valley spread before her. Archer settled beside her, one knee raised, leaning back on his arm.

“The flower of the Gewindi Clan is mostly gone,” he said soberly.

“What did they hope to accomplish by attacking that patrol?”

“Exactly what came to befall them.” He sighed. “You dozed for a few minutes during the ride, and I spoke with Jenah. He said that Bozandari patrol was on its way to the Telnah, to take more slaves. Most of the men who died last night would have been taken. And some of the women, as well. They chose to fight instead, to preserve their Tel. From stories they have heard, the slave patrols have lately been killing many of those they don’t take, or burning the villages’ food supplies and leaving the Tels to starve.”

“Why in the world would they do that?”

Archer made a small movement, suggestive of a shrug. “The Bozandari have always been a hard people. Long it was a hardness born of necessity. Their home city has always been a way station and trade center, but the Bozandari themselves had little to sell. So they learned to exact the greatest possible profit from their location. Traders coming to Bozandar are taxed, and the market keepers also take tax in kind on all goods brought for sale. It was how the Bozandari learned to survive.”

He paused a moment. “In times gone by, this was naught but a means of feeding themselves and their people. But taking from all whom they encountered became a way of life. And as their wealth grew, they could afford larger armies with which to intimidate or conquer their neighbors. For a people accustomed to providing for themselves from other people’s labors, conquest and plunder were but a small step.”

“But whyever do they turn these people into slaves?”

“It began because the Anari are such great workers of stone. The Bozandari wanted their cities to shine with the same beauty and skill, so they collected the best of the Anari stoneworkers and took them to Bozandar. But beyond that, why work a market oneself when one can make a slave do the work? Why cook one’s own meals when a slave can do that? Again, for a people whose history lies in surviving on the work of others, ’tis but a small step.”

Tess shook her head. “There are no limits to the cruelty of men.”

“It seems not.” His face grew shadowed, as if he were remembering things best forgotten.

For his sake, she tried to change the subject. “How is it the Ilduin came to have such power? If Sara and I are to be useful as Ilduin, it would seem that we ought to know who we are and how our powers work.”

He was silent for a moment, as if drawing himself out of a dark pit. “You speak of the Mysteries.”

“The Mysteries?”

“Aye. The secrets of the Ilduin. The Ilduin of old may have known. ’Twas said their powers were gifts from the gods. But whatever they knew, they kept to themselves. ’Tis said that at the end of the First Age, when horror and destruction lay all around, the Ilduin oversaw the building of the Anari temples and concealed all the Mysteries within those temples. If that be true, none has ever found the answers, though many have tried over the centuries.”

The stew was soon ready. Sara had an amazing way of throwing a few things into a pot and in a short while producing a savory meal. Tess ate with a hunger that surprised even herself, as if she had not eaten in weeks. Almost as soon as the food hit her belly, she could feel herself strengthening.

By the time Sara and Tom had finished cleaning up and were about to put out the cook fire, Giri began to ride up the slope toward them. He came fast, but not fast enough to cause alarm.

When he reached them, his face was grave and full of sorrow. “Let us go down to Gewindi-Telner. They have offered us lodging at Telnertah, the village temple.”

He looked past them at the other Anari. “You will follow us.”

* * * *

From times past, Archer recognized a few of the older Gewindi, and they him. His travels had taken him over most of the known world in his time, and taken him more than once. A few nods greeted him as he and Tess led the procession into town, but beyond nods, the greetings were nonexistent. The usually warm and outgoing Anari had become cautious of strangers over the three generations of their enslavement, and with the day’s bad news, they were even less inclined to warmth. Most faces were stoic, but on some tears coursed down.

Giri led them straight to the temple and into the guesthouse, made of stone and roofed over with a perfectly carved vault of granite.

“Stay here,” he told the party. “There is to be a judgment, and outsiders will not be welcome.”

He stayed to help unload the horses, then guided their mounts away to a stable. The rest of the party remained in the comfortably large round room that was somehow ensconced in the temple. There was a door that led into the temple proper, but Tom soon discovered it was locked.

“We can’t go in there?” he asked.

Ratha shook his head. “Not without invitation.”

In a corner was a small fountain with water gushing up from it, probably from some underground spring. There was a hearth on which wood for a fire had already been laid, though not lit. And there were a half dozen elevated stone pallets that could serve either as chairs or beds.

Windows beneath shades of animal skin that could be rolled up or down gave a view onto the sun-shaped plaza and beyond, to one of the curving paths that led between leafless trees to another section of the village.

Tess found herself drawn to the window and stood there for minutes uncounted, feeling as if she stood on some kind of brink.

“What is it, Tess?” Sara asked, coming to her elbow. “What do you see?”

“’Tis not what I see but what I feel.”

Sara nodded and remained beside her, staring out the window. More minutes passed, then a soft sigh escaped her. “It speaks to us.”

“Yes. But I don’t understand.”

“Nor I.”

Together they continued to stare out at the sun-drenched plaza and the winding stone path, so carefully laid out by long ago masons.

“This work is amazing,” Tom said, peering closely at a wall. “The stones are seamless.”

He pulled a hair from his head and attempted to slide it into the almost invisible crack between two stones. “I can’t…and the joints aren’t even square. See how each rock is cut in a different shape, yet each fits exactly into the others?”

“That is one of the many wonders of Anari stonework,” Archer said. “The stones are locked together so that nothing can dislodge them. But wait until you see the other things they create from stone. Items of such beauty and intricacy that no one else can mimic them.”

“Our blessing and our bane both,” Ratha said. “But that is about to end.”

With those words, he reminded them all that they had come to join a revolution.

Tess turned back to the window, Sara at her side, and resumed her study of the view, unable to escape the feeling that it was speaking to her.

The sun was sinking low in the west when at last Jenah returned. He was followed by a group of young men and women who bore stone platters of food for the guests and, surprisingly, flowers for Tess.

She accepted them with a smile and an expression of gratitude, but felt uncomfortable at being singled out in this fashion. After all, Archer, Ratha and Giri had fought beside the men of Gewindi Tel and certainly deserved more thanks than she did.

“Eat,” said Jenah. “Then we have a favor to ask of Lady Tess.”

That news was enough to destroy Tess’s appetite, but out of courtesy she tasted the food…and found it to be too wonderful to pass up.

Giri came to sit beside her around the feast and said reassuringly, “Fear not, Lady. All will be well.”

“Guests are treated royally by the Anari,” Archer added. “Among the desert peoples, to deny succor to a stranger is a mortal sin. Now that they are sure we are not agents of Bozandar, the old ways resume.”

“Aye,” Ratha agreed, with a laugh. “Wait until you taste the hospitality of Monabi-Tel.”

Giri joined his brother’s laugh. “Indeed. Monabi-Tel must exceed Gewindi-Tel.”

“Of course,” Ratha said.

His voice broke into song, a melody that sat low in his chest and seemed to rumble with the memories of the mountains themselves.

Monabi-Tel an leekehnen

Monabi lohrisie

Zar Tel mim Torsah seekehnen

Monabi lohr

Monabi fohr

Monabi-Tel wohbie.

Tess found herself laughing, despite having no idea what the words meant. Somehow the melody made her want to clap her hands as gleefully as a child. Finally she asked, “Of what do you sing, Ratha?”

“It is a children’s song,” he replied with a grin. “The words do not work well in your language, but it is something like this: Monabi-Tel live decently, Monabi people say. Our Tel craves wisdom peacefully. Monabi are good. Monabi are strong. Just ask Monabi-Tel.”

“As you can see,” Giri said, joining in the mirth, “we are raised to be a proud people.”

“And yet you make fun of yourselves at the same time,” Tess said.

“But of course, m’Lady,” Giri said. “To be proud and not make fun of oneself is arrogance. To make fun of oneself and not be proud is self-loathing. But to be proud and still make fun of oneself, that is wisdom.”

“Monabi-Tel were always our bards and tricksters,” Jenah said with an almost imperceptible wink. “Take naught that they say seriously.”

“And Gewindi-Tel were always our solemn and hardworking mentors,” Giri replied. “Look not to them for joy, but only for labor.”

“How much of any of this should I take seriously?” Tess asked with a playful smile.

“Very little,” Archer said, chuckling. “The play among Tels has been thus for time out of mind. From the smallest grain of truth they will build a mountain of playful lies about each other.”

“Aye,” Giri said. “It is why we have never made war amongst ourselves. You might say we celebrate our common differences.”

“That is well-spoken,” Jenah said. Turning to Tess, he added, “That which divides us is but a fraction of that which unites us. And thus have we played and laughed and worked together from the First Age.”

He paused for a moment, shifting forward in his seat. “But not all is play and laughter, m’Lady. As I said, we have a favor to ask of you. And the Lady Sara, if she would not mind.”

“I will do what I can,” Tess said, uncertainty and dread growing within her heart. “I fear I know too little to be of much use.”

“And I,” Sara added. “I pray that you do not expect too much, lest I disappoint you.”

“What they ask is naught but a small thing,” Jenah said, smiling. “Our Telneren ask. They will explain.”




4


Jenah led Tess and Sara out of the guest room and through the larger circular entrance room by which they had come. He paused a moment to orient them.

“Each Anari Tel consists of three family groups. This room is my family’s entrance to the temple.” He pointed through a window at one of the serpentine paths that led to another round building surrounded by smaller houses. “That is my family’s dwelling place. My people always come to the temple along that path and through this door. This demonstrates our awareness that we are part of a larger whole, yet each must follow his own path within the whole.”

“It’s beautiful,” Tess said, looking around her at the glyphs on the walls. “I can see why people believe the Ilduin secrets lie within your temples. These walls sing with meaning and yet hover out of reach, like forgotten dreams.”

“Like forgotten dreams,” Sara echoed, nodding. “Yes.”

“Come,” Jenah said, indicating a door on the inner wall. “The Telneren await.”

They stepped through the door into another large circular room, obviously at the center of the temple. The walls and ceiling offered a panoply of glyphs and recessed reliefs that drew the attention from one to the next as if by a magnetic force. In the center, a round altar stood with three lighted candles. Around the altar sat six Anari women, their eyes closed, mouths moving silently and yet in unison. Jenah touched a finger to his lips and waited with them as the women completed their prayer.

When they finished the prayer, the six women opened their eyes simultaneously and turned to Jenah. The oldest of the women spoke quietly.

“These are the Ilduin?”

“Yes, mother,” Jenah said. “I present Lady Tess Birdsong and Lady Sara Deepwell, of Whitewater, in the northern lands. Upon my honor, they come with pure hearts and of free will in the service of the Anari.”

“Upon your honor, with pure hearts and of free will, we accept their service,” the woman said. Then she broke into a smile and offered a slight bow, instantly mirrored by the others. “Welcome to Gewindi-Telner, my Ladies. We are honored to be blessed with Ilduin presence.”

“The honor is ours,” Tess said, repeating the bow and the words Jenah had taught her, the ritual greetings of the Anari. “My hosts bless me with their hospitality.”

“My name is Eiehsa of Gewindi-Tel,” the woman said, now stepping closer. “My son has told me of your meeting, and the courage of your companions. I would thank you for saving my son’s life, and know that I feel such in my heart, but a formal recitation would neglect the souls of those whom you could not save and the mothers who grieve them. I fear you have come to our land in perilous times, and yet we ask your blessing.”

“My blessing?” Tess asked, surprised to learn that Eiesha was Jenah’s mother. “I don’t understand.”

“Ilduin were they who taught us to shape these walls such,” Eiehsa said, “and Ilduin are the spirits that move within Anari hands as they shape the stone. It is the custom of our people that children receive an Ilduin blessing as soon as they leave their mothers’ breasts, but our only Ilduin was taken as a slave four years past, and many are the unblessed children. On behalf of my Tel, I entreat that you would bless these young souls, that their future may be brighter than their past.”

“I do not know what to do,” Tess said. “Sara and I are of Ilduin blood, yes, but we have not yet learned even a fraction of what that means.”

The woman smiled. “It is not what you may know that would bless our children, Lady Tess. It is the essence of the goodness that lies within you which carries the grace of blessing.”

Tess remembered the horrors of Lorense and wondered if there was indeed goodness in her Ilduin heritage. Would she bless these people—or damn them? She could see the same thoughts echoed in Sara’s eyes.

“I fear the Ladies doubt themselves, Mother,” Jenah said. “Much pain have they suffered in their journey here, and I sense there is much they regret. Little has Lady Tess told me, but in the spaces between her words there are volumes to be read.”

The woman nodded and held out a hand to each of them, palms up. The warmth in the woman’s eyes completed the invitation, and Tess and Sara each placed a hand in hers. The woman’s eyes closed, and her lips moved again in a silent prayer. Although her back was to the other Telneren, they, too, closed their eyes and mouthed the prayer in unison.

“These are hands of soft hearts,” Eiehsa said, her eyes still closed. “For only soft hearts could grieve so. May Adis guide their grieving hearts into safe harbor and his cleansing waters carry their stains into the abyss.”

“May Adis guide their grieving hearts into safe harbor and his cleansing waters carry their stains into the abyss,” the other women echoed in unison.

Tess had closed her eyes almost on impulse, but now she opened them as she felt water pouring over her hand. Two of the other women had approached them with shallow, stone pitchers from which the water flowed.

Eiehsa smiled and gave their hands a squeeze. “What Adis has taken into the abyss, you must release, lest you be taken into the abyss with it. Bear your burdens no longer, noble Ilduin.”

Tess’s thoughts warred against each other. On one side was the impulse to accept that what was past was past and embrace her future. On the other lay doubt, the urge to dismiss the woman’s words as so much mystical refuse. Only when she saw the tears flowing down Sara’s face did she know to which impulse she would yield. There was naught to be gained and much to be lost in continuing to flay herself for what had happened.

“I accept the forgiveness of Adis,” Sara whispered through her tears.

“I accept the forgiveness of Adis,” Tess repeated, now feeling her own tears begin to flow. “Let us go forward together, Sara, in the good that we know to be.”

“Yes, Lady Tess,” Sara said, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “In the good that we know to be.”

A wide smile lighted Eiehsa’s face and, it seemed, the entire room. “And now, you will bless our children?”



The children filed in through the three great entryways, accompanied by mothers who appeared both anxious and proud. All the children were very young, some infants in arms, others certainly no more than five summers. At the altar, the three lines merged and began to move in a circle around Tess and Sara so that each child would be blessed by both.

As she touched each soft head and absorbed each smile, Tess felt beauty growing within her, a lightness and warmth that she was sure she had never felt before. Her lips murmured gentle words of blessing, but it was as if she was the one being blessed. She had no idea how many children she might have blessed…a hundred? But she was transported by the experience until, at its very end, she lifted her eyes to the dome of rock above her head and stared into its very heart.

It was as if the symbols drew her, lifting her, until she felt light on her feet, as if she could soar above. Surely all the blessings she had given and the warmth she had received in turn had gone to her head.

“Tess?” Sara’s touch was gentle, but it brought her back to earth. Tess realized they were alone in the temple now; even the clan mothers had disappeared.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to gather herself.

“Did you see something? The mothers thought you were communing and left you to be in peace.”

“I don’t know.” Tess tilted her head again and looked upward, but this time the symbols on the ceiling merely looked like a foreign language and tugged at her not at all. “I felt something, but…” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps I’m simply tired.”

“We should go back to our room, then. It’s time for a meal, and it’s growing chillier even in here.”

Tess nodded and began to follow Sara out of the temple and through the nave. A carving caught her eye in the nave, however, and drew her immediately to it.

“What is it?” Sara asked. “Do you recognize it?”

“I don’t…” Tess shook her head, trying to find a way to describe what she was feeling. “I don’t remember it, exactly. But it’s familiar somehow, as if I should remember it.” Hesitantly she reached out to touch the symbol and run her hand over it. At once it was as if she could hear music.

She snatched her hand back sharply.

“Tess?”

“Touch it, Sara, and tell me if you sense anything.”

Sara’s brow knitted, but she obeyed, placing her fingertips on the lines that delineated the symbol, drawing them gently over it as Tess had. Then she, too, yanked her hand back.

“Music,” she breathed.

“Aye,” murmured Tess.

“But what does it mean?”

“I know not.” Then a thought struck her, and with it a sense of wonderment. “It is as if they are trying to speak to us.”

Sara’s mouth opened with awe, and slowly she placed her hand on the symbol again. “Aye,” she whispered. “Aye. It plays the same notes again.”

Lowering her hand, she looked at Tess. “What shall we do?”

“I think perhaps we should ask the Telneren if they hear the music, too.”

“And what if they don’t?”

“Then we may have found the means of the transmission of the Mysteries.”

“Oh!” Sara’s eyes grew huge.

“It would be wonderful if we could understand it.”

Sara surprised her with a little giggle. “Aye, there is that, isn’t there? What good is an answer if you cannot understand it?”

* * * *

The war councils had already begun. When Tess and Sara returned to the guest lodging, they found that all the men, except Tom, had gone.

“They’re meeting somewhere,” Tom told them. “To discuss strategy for an Anari uprising. Gewindi-Tel is too weak now to act alone, but there are other Tels, many of them, and there are thousands living in the great Anari city of Anahar. So they are discussing how best to get started.”

Sara at once sat beside him. The fire was blazing brightly, and more food had replaced the earlier repast, spread atop one of the stone pallets. “Why aren’t you with them?”

“Archer wanted me to stay here to look after the two of you.” He looked as if he felt a little dismayed by that order.

“Well, I am glad you are here to be our champion,” Sara said stoutly. “I would have missed you.”

Tom brightened, and Tess turned away to hide her smile. She was, she realized, still ravenous, so she picked up a small stone bowl and began to fill it with tantalizing tidbits. “I wonder,” she said, “that they can afford to feed us so well.”

“Apparently the evil winter didn’t strike early here as it did up north,” Tom answered. “I was talking with Jenah about that. He had heard of what was happening but had no idea it was as severe as it was, especially around Derda.”

Just as Tess began to feel replete with food and was considering stretching out on her bedroll, which someone had kindly spread for her, Archer entered the lodging, along with a blast of winter’s breath.

“We must pack and leave at once,” he said.

Tess leaped to her feet. “What’s wrong?”

“The entire village is making ready to leave. Bozandari revenge is about to arrive.”




5


Archer sat astride his mount, watching the line of villagers as they made their way up into the crags of the mountains above the town. It was a moonless night, but somehow the cliff faces reflected enough starlight to make the path visible.

It was also a terrible night to be exposed to the elements. The bitter, icy wind rushed down from the north, bringing with it the smell of snow soon to fall. Men and women alike carried the younger children in their arms, even though they also bore heavy packs on their backs. Every single member of Gewindi-Tel had tried to bring enough to get them as far as Anahar.

Archer doubted they had succeeded. Even with his party’s packhorses loaded as fully as they could be, no one could carry enough. They would have to hope they would be given food as they passed through other villages.

And that they would grow this small seed of an army.

There were no elderly among the Anari. They did not age as did other men. Created at the hands of the Ilduin, they had been gifted with long life and extraordinary health. Aye, they could die from illness and injury, but illness seldom befell them. They grew older, more mature, and were less likely to want adventure than the younger members of the group, but until the day they died they worked the fields and the stones as strongly as anyone.

The reduction in their numbers, the shrinking of the clans, had come about only because of the Bozandari and their rapacious ways.

The long lives of the Anari, Archer thought, should have warned the Bozandari that eventually trouble would come. For among even this band of Anari, probably a third of them could still remember the times before the slavers had come and conquered them. These elders helped keep the flame of freedom alive in the hearts of their people.

Bowed but not broken, he thought. The Bozandari would never understand.

As the last members of the column passed him, he turned his mount and began to follow. When he reached a promontory, he paused to look back. He could see the torches of the approaching Bozandari army to the northeast, but they were yet a long way from the village.

This group would escape. Satisfied, he spurred after them.

Giri emerged from the night a short time later and fell in beside him. “We’ll be well away by first light.”

“Aye.”

Another icy gust of wind blew down the funnel of the mountains and into their faces. For an instant Archer felt the sting of sleet. Then it was gone.

“What I do not understand,” Giri said, when the wind would no longer snatch away his words, “is why the Bozandari have suddenly become…worse. ’Twas bad enough when they could come into the telners, taking the strongest and best to make into slaves or whores, but never before did it seem that they wanted to rid the world of all Anari. After all, we have been their garden of new slaves.”

Archer rode silently for a minute or two, thinking over how much he should tell his friend. He did not wish to dishearten Giri, but on the other hand…

“There is a worse evil afoot in this world, my friend, than Bozandar and its armies. I fear this evil is using the Bozandari as he used Lantav Glassidor and his minions.”

“What is this evil?”

“Some name him Chaos. Others call him the Enemy.”

Giri stiffened but questioned no further. Apparently the memory of the Anari was not as short as other races, who had long since forgotten such tales or abandoned them as fantasies.

Archer sighed and lifted his head to the heavens, noting that the stars were beginning to blur behind wisps of clouds.

The tight, cold knot that had never quite eased over the countless years seemed to be growing in his chest until it would consume him.

Thus it begins again.

* * * *

The first glow of dawn found them well away from Gewindi-Telner, hidden in the wild reaches of mountains only the Anari knew well enough to traverse. Even here, far out from civilization, there were signs that some rock had spoken to a mason and been harvested.

But the Anari also knew that some of the mountains and rock bound evil in their depths, an evil as old as the world itself. Here they passed quietly, as unobtrusive as might be. Remembering the fire creature they had fought in the Adasen basin, Tom could well understand the caution he saw in those around him.

But at other times there was apparently no evil to concern them, and the pace quickened and conversation resumed.

Eventually, before the canyons and ravines in the mountains had felt the sun’s touch, Jenah called a halt.

“It is safe here,” Jenah told Archer and the rest of his party. “Long have Anari camped safely in the embrace of these rocks.”

Embrace was a good word, Tom thought, looking around them, for it seemed as if they had entered a circle of level ground created by the stones themselves. Dismounting, he helped as much as he could, lifting packs from the tired shoulders of Anari mothers and fathers who carried children now awakening and famished. He helped build cook fires with a strange black rock that burned and seemed to be in abundance here, and carried buckets of water from the waterfall hidden behind the rocks.

Soon tantalizing smells filled the camp, and, not long after that, hungry children were being fed before their elders dipped in.

He was glad finally to rejoin his own little group: Archer, Ratha, Giri, Tess and Sara. Most especially Sara. Any weariness he might have felt was banished when she smiled at him and squeezed his hand as he sat beside her.

She passed him a bowl of the stew she had made, and he tucked in with great delight.

“You are sure it is he?” Ratha asked Archer.

“Aye. His ugly touch is all over the world right now. After Lorense, there can be no doubt.”

Tom leaned forward. “Who are you talking about?”

Archer looked at the lad gravely. “Have you heard the tales about Chaos?”

Tom felt his heart skip a beat. “He who would destroy the world?”

“Aye, lad. The same.”

“But I thought…” Tom’s voice trailed off as he looked inward and realized that what he had once thought to be a fairy tale for children was no such thing after all. He had sensed it ever since Lorense and what he had seen that day as Sara and Tess had battled Lantav Glassidor. The mage, skilled though he was, had been possessed by something darker and uglier, and Tom had seen it.

He looked at Archer once again. “Glassidor,” he said. “He was but a doorway.”

“Exactly,” Archer replied. Even in the warmth of the rising sun, the day remained cold, and Archer was wrapped deeply in his cloak. For a man who could look like vengeance on two feet when they faced trouble, he appeared singularly inoffensive at the moment.

“But not the only one,” Tom said, though he was hoping he was wrong.

“Not the only one,” Archer agreed, his voice heavy. “We have heard of other hives. You know that. But there is more afoot.”

Tess, who had been drawing in the dust at her feet with a twig, spoke. “There is a larger doorway open now.” She sounded almost as if she were in a trance. “Can’t you feel it?”

Tom felt a shivering within, an unpleasant sensation, not unlike when he feared he might fall from a great height. He closed his eyes, trying to deal with the feeling, trying to find his well of courage. But instead of courage, he found words that insisted on being spoken, though he had little idea what they meant.

“When the three approach, the Twelve must guard the unbound Enemy.”

His eyes popped open, and he found everyone staring at him.

“Well,” said Archer, “that’s clear enough. Would you could tell us the outcome, Tom.”

Tom merely shook his head, wondering at these times when he felt compelled to speak words that did not seem to be of his own design.

“I will tell you,” Archer said slowly, tossing yet another small coal on the fire, “that the Enemy has grown since last he and I crossed paths. In those days he could not have done what I saw him do in Lorense. Nor what I suspect he does with the weather. It will indeed take the Twelve to save us.”

As if his words had drawn the fury of the heavens down on them, the skies swiftly clouded over and the wind became a gale of sleet. From around the entire camp came cries of surprise as everyone hunkered down within cloaks and blankets.

Tom edged closer to the fire. Tess alone seemed oblivious but continued her tracings in the dust of the ages.

As quickly as the gale had arrived, it vanished, as if the peaks around them had swallowed it up. Above, the sky remained clouded but appeared benign enough otherwise.

“That was strange,” Tom muttered.

Ratha placed a hand on his shoulder. “Eat up, lad. Matters will get stranger yet.”

Tom turned to look the Anari in the eye. “If you seek to comfort me, that is an unusual way to do it.”

Ratha laughed, a sound that seemed to drive back the edges of evil. “I was just assuring you that you have much adventure to look forward to.”

It was hard now for Tom to remember that only a few short weeks ago he had been living with his family in the small town of Whitewater and dreaming of great adventures rather than the humdrum life of a gatekeeper’s son. Thinking back on it, he sighed. “I think, Ratha, that I have encountered more adventure than a lifetime needs.”

Ratha leaned close. “Aye, lad, you have. We all have. Unfortunately there seems to be no end in sight.”

Archer had taken note of Tess’s writing in the sand. “What do you seek, Lady?”

Slowly Tess looked up. “It is a symbol I saw in the temple at Gewindi-Telnah. I keep feeling that I should know what it means.”

Archer left the stone on which he had been sitting and went to crouch beside her. “Show me,” he said. “I have some command of the Old Tongue.”

Carefully she traced the flow and curve of the intricate symbol, trying as best she could to get it to resemble exactly what she had seen on the wall.

Archer nodded slowly. “It says, One who blazes with the light of the gods.”

“I wonder why it seems so familiar,” she said.

Sara leaned over. “You forgot part of it, Tess.” Taking the stick from the other woman’s hand, she drew a rounded triangle around the letters. “Does that mean anything?”

Archer’s expression now looked as stony as any Anari’s. “The enclosure means that it holds within a name. The name in this case is…Theriel.”

“The White Lady,” Tom breathed. “She of the legends.”

Reaching out suddenly, Archer rubbed away the symbol with his gloved hand. Then, without a word, he strode away from them.

Tess stared after him. “I upset him.”

“Much about the past upsets him, Lady,” Ratha said bracingly. “Especially when the present is but another maw of the past.”

“What does that mean?” Tom asked.

Ratha cocked his head to one side, as if considering his words with care. “We fight an old battle, Tom. What is to come has already been.”

* * * *

The fleeing villagers rested only long enough to see to their needs and catch a few hours of sleep. By midday they were on their way again, following a path that would have been invisible to all but the initiated.

Everywhere there seemed to be a recognition that they were leaving behind the familiar forever. That at the end of this march, one way or another, the world would change eternally.



Sara found herself walking among the Telneren, with Tom at her side. The women sang in an easy, lilting rhythm that matched their strides, and although Sara could not understand the words, the melodies and harmonies seemed to reach into her soul. She squeezed Tom’s hand and glanced over to him. The look on his face gave her pause.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“They sing with such joy,” he said. “I can’t find any joy in this journey.”

She favored him with a smile. “Not even with me, Tom Downey?”

“Of course,” he said, his voice faltering. “I didn’t mean…it’s just…so much…and so much more….”

“Don’t lose courage, Tom,” she said, giving his hand another squeeze. “They sing with the joy of courage. The joy of those who know their cause is just, who know they will overcome.”

“If the last two days are a portent,” Tom said, “the Bozandari can stamp them out Tel by Tel until there are none left.”

“And if they allowed themselves to stand Tel by Tel, that might happen. But this is why we march to Anahar. I suspect Gewindi-Tel are not the only Anari with this idea.” She pointed ahead. “Look at how Ratha and Giri and Jenah have fallen in as one. Bonds of kinship are strong among the Anari, just as they are in Whitewater. When trouble befalls any, all respond. The Bozandari will regret having burned the tail of this great desert adder.”

“Do you miss home?” he said. “At the mere sound of the word—Whitewater—I see my mother bringing a bowl of stew to my father, then sitting by the fireplace with her knitting. And my heart weeps. I wonder how they are surviving this winter, and whether we shall go home to a ghost town.”

“Now, Tom, you know Whitewater folk better than to say such a thing. Why, look at us. Much hardship have we seen on this journey, and yet we walk on. Why would you think our kinsmen capable of any less? Whitewater presses its shoulder to the mountains. Our people are good beasts of burden. When the load is heavy, we pull together. Let us not fear for them.”

“Your Lady speaks the truth,” Eiehsa said, during a pause in the singing. “Fret not about what you cannot affect, Lord Thomas. The sun will rise and the sun will set, but the heart beats during light or darkness.”

“Lord Thomas,” Tom said, chuckling. “I am quite certain I do not merit that title. I am merely Tom Downey, of the village of Whitewater, son of a gatekeeper.”

“Lady Sara is a noble Ilduin,” Eiehsa said with a deep smile. “I am sure her eye would not fall fair on one less noble than she.”

“She’s right,” Sara said. “You are the son of a gatekeeper, yes, and a noble thing indeed is that alone. But you are more than that, Tom, and you know this to be true. Much do you speak that a young man would not see, and when you do, I hear the voice of ages on the wind. You are a prophet, Tom Downey. Mark my words.”

“A master of the obvious, perhaps,” Tom said.

“Now, lad,” Eiehsa said, “I suspect the Lady will be for tanning your hide if you continue to speak thus. You wonder if you are worthy of her. But that is your wonder, Tom, not hers. Her eyes say she has no such doubts.”

“Not even the least,” Sara said, giving him a playful smack on the bottom. “So either you are indeed worthy, or I am a blind and stupid girl. I’ll thank you not to imply the latter.”

“Are you going to let her spank you like that?” Archer said with a deep, grumbling laugh, having suddenly appeared at their side.

“Um…yes?” Tom asked.

“Smart lad,” Archer said, winking at Sara. “He knows what is good for him. And I know what is good for me, and for all of us, if I may prevail upon Mother Eiehsa and her sisters for another song to lighten our steps.”

“Very well,” Eiehsa said. “In the presence of such nobility as Lord Archer and his companions, perhaps our oldest and most beautiful song is in order. We sing it but rarely, yet it is the song that binds our souls as can none other. Sisters, let us sing.”

Their voices rose together, and even Archer sang along, translating the words for the rest.

Our roots lie deep in mountain stone,

On desert sand we stand, alone,

But not alone, not e’er are we,

For graced by blessings each are we.

The rising sun and setting moon,

Bring rhythm to the heart’s own tune,

The summer warmth and winter rain,

Renew our strength to stand again.

We live as one, in joy and peace,

And know we all, when labors cease,

That in the arms of gods we sleep,

Our souls forever theirs to keep.

Weep not, Anari, tall and proud,

Let not thy burdened back be bowed,

Created one by Twelve are ye,

Live long in honor, brave and free.

Sara found herself singing along, her voice dancing with those of the Anari as if born of a strength beyond her own. If the Twelve had indeed created the Anari, then that grace must surely wash away any stain. For in the lilt of their voices, and hers, she found a peace like none she could remember.

Finally even Tom sang beside her, their voices rising like the dreams of lovers not yet met as if to play among the stars. Long had she wished for this, to hear his voice unite in song with hers. If it took a horrific flight through all the world to hear his voice thus, then every horror was paid in this moment.

“I do love thee, Tom Downey,” she said, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

In the instant that her lips tasted his sweetness, a brief, flitting whisper sounded. And then the arrow lodged in his side.




6


“By Elanor!” Tom cried, sinking to the ground.

Archer heard the cry, but his eyes were already on the ridge to their left, looking at the rainbow of arrows arcing through the air toward them.

“Cover!” he cried.

The words were unnecessary, as already the Anari were going to ground amidst the rocks, mothers clutching children to their breasts, men unslinging their own bows and nocking arrows.

Archer reached down and lifted Tom with one arm, the other gently pushing Sara aside. “Let us get him safe from further wounds first, m’Lady. Then you can tend to these.”

She nodded, her face white as a midnight moon, and scrabbled alongside Archer into the lee of a rock. The clatter of arrows on rock lasted another few seconds that seemed like an eternity, then stopped.

“Why do they show mercy?” she asked.

“It’s not mercy,” Archer said. “They have no easy targets and waste not the work of their fletchers. This is but a brief respite, and then they will fall upon us with all their fury.”

Tom let out a long, low groan, and Archer rested a hand on his shoulder. “Breathe easy, my friend. The wound hurts worse than it is. Your Lady Sara can tend it beyond any notice. I promise you.”

Tom nodded weakly, his eyes screwed closed, and Archer glanced at Sara’s face. She saw the truth as plainly as did Archer. The arrow had entered Tom’s side, just below the ribs, the tip protruding from his belly. He would indeed need Ilduin magick.

“I’ll get Lady Tess,” he whispered in her ear, so that Tom would not hear it. “And try to organize our defense.”

Sara nodded, and cradled Tom’s head in her arms, murmuring an entreaty to Elanor, the goddess of healing.

Archer slipped from rock to gully to rock, taking the faces of shaken Anari in his hands and explaining what he needed of them. In moments, their shock was replaced by a cold determination. Finally he reached the head of the column, where Jenah had already recalled the advance guards and was issuing instructions. Tess was tending the wound of an Anari whose calf had been pierced through, and Archer waited for her to finish before speaking.

“It’s Tom,” he said. “Midway back in the column. He is shot through the belly.”

“Damn them,” she swore, Ilduin fire flashing in her eyes. “I will go to him.”

“Quickly, please,” Archer said.

“They will attack soon,” Jenah said, after Tess had left. “They follow us like a hunter after wounded prey.”

“Yes,” Archer said. “And when this is over, we must consider why that is. But that is for later. For now, we fight.”

No sooner had the words left his lips than a cry arose on the ridge, and two hundred Bozandari rose from their positions and began to descend upon the Anari. These were not seasoned troops, for they came on too fast, and soon were stumbling amidst the loose shale and talus on the slope. Now the Anari added their arrows to the hardships of the advance, and within minutes the ridge was a roiling mass of screaming forms, comrades stepping on comrades in an attempt to press the attack, trying vainly to form battle order, lest they emerge onto the valley floor as a vulnerable rabble.

“Hold fast!” Archer bellowed, the order echoing down the line as a few Anari rose to advance.

To meet the enemy on the slope would be madness, for their descending mass would shatter any line. But once they reached the base of the slope, those in front would suffer from the headlong rush of those behind. Then they could be struck with effect—if only the Anari would be patient.

“Steady!” Jenah yelled, his deep voice seeming to carry the weight of the mountain itself as it boomed and echoed through the valley. “Steady!”

Arrows continued to thin the Bozandari ranks, but Archer could see that too many were making it through the deadly hail. “Ratha! Giri! To me!”

“We are already here, m’Lord,” Giri said. “Where else would you find us in a fight?”

“Hiding under a rock, perhaps,” Ratha said, dark humor swimming in his words.

“Speak for yourself, brother,” Giri said, grinning.

“On my word, we advance,” Archer called, ignoring their verbal horseplay, his eyes sweeping up and down the line. “Jenah, can you flank them?”

“Aye, Lord Archer,” Jenah responded. “Doubt not our valor, nor our skill.”

“I doubt not,” Archer said, feeling his muscles tense for the spring. “I doubt not. Advance!”

Anari men and women rose and moved on the enemy, fire in their eyes, fury in their bellies. Archer had had but a few minutes to teach them the old fighting ways, and many were the mistakes. But many things were done correctly, as well, and soon the deadly swirl of swords began to bite flesh. The eyes of the Bozandari were wide with terror, for this was not the helpless prey they had imagined. Still, they fought with the skill borne of countless hours of drilling, managing to form a ragged line in the chaos.

If fury be the fuel of battle, then the Anari burned bright in its cauldron. They fought with the fury of men and women who had lost too much, endured too much, buried too many and grieved their last breaths. The Bozandari fell before them like blood-drenched sheaves of desert rye, yet still held their line.

With a deep cry that seemed to emanate from the depths of the earth, Jenah ordered his flanking force into the attack, and now the issue was fully decided as panic swept down the Bozandari line. For Archer, minutes stretched into hours, his mind blurred against the carnage at his feet, the clang of metal on metal and the screams of the dying. Killing had become an all too familiar routine, and his body performed almost without need of his mind. It was better this way, he decided. Better not to be there when he and those around him did such things. Better to simply let muscle and steel and nature take their course.



Tess looked up to watch the final carnage with a grim satisfaction, then returned her attention to Tom. Words she did not remember having known flitted through her mind: sepsis, peritonitis. The wound was indeed grave, and her hands worked with almost mechanical precision to extract the arrow. The cry that rose from Tom’s throat as she drew the shaft out was beyond human, and Sara sobbed beside her.

“Find water,” Tess said, looking into Sara’s eyes. “And those herbs you keep in your pouch. Find them now, Sara. I need your help. Do you hear me?”

Sara nodded numbly, and Tess reached up to squeeze her shoulder with a blood-smeared hand. “Sara! Listen. I need you to help me. Get water and your herbs. Now.”

“Yes, m’Lady,” Sara said.

As she left, Tom’s hand moved to Tess’s thigh, gripping it so tightly that she could feel the bruises forming. She met his eyes and kept her voice steady and even.

“I have the arrow out, Tom. I need to clean the wounds as best I can, and put a poultice on them. Stay with me, Tom. Look at my face and stay with me.”

“Ohhhhhhhh Elanor,” he moaned. “My sins are grave.”

“He says the prayer of the dying,” Eiehsa said, kneeling beside her.

“Stop that!” Tess said, fury in her voice. “You are not going to die, Tom Downey, Prophet of the Prophecy. You are not going to die in this place. By the power of the Twelve, I forbid it!”

The sky seemed to crack with a thousand peals of thunder, halting even the last of the Bozandari in their tracks. Tess seemed to shimmer from a sun within, light blazing from her eyes.

“I forbid it!” she cried again. “You may not take him!”

The pouch between her breasts seemed to burn like fire, and she yanked it off, allowing the stones to spill over Tom’s belly. The stones flared like golden fire, dancing over his wounds. He cried as blood hissed into steam and the stones sank into his flesh, but she held his arms pinned as she looked up to the heavens.

“Ilduin tessuh nah elah! Ilduin mees lahrohn nah elah! Tessuh nah elah!”

Fury swept out of the sky, flaming hail sizzling on the dead, dying and fleeing Bozandari, igniting their bodies and reigniting their screams. An inhuman howl rose through the valley, a howl to chill the blood of the gods themselves, and with a final pealing boom, the sky seemed to expel its own rage. In the echoing silence that rode its wake, only Tom’s low whimper could be heard.

“My Lady Sara,” he moaned. “I love you.”

“And I love you, too,” Sara said, appearing beside Tess with a pitcher of water and her pouch of herbs. “I have loved you from the moment I was old enough to know what love is, Tom Downey. And I will not lose you this day, nor any other. My soul is bound to yours forever.”

“I love you,” he whispered, eyes fluttering closed. “I love you always, dear Sara Deepwell. Always.”

And he was still.

* * * *

Tess remained filled with the power. It shot about her body like lightning and made her blond hair flow as if in a gale. Her eyes seemed to shoot sparks. All who could see her began to back away in terror, except Sara, who fell across Tom’s lifeless body and wailed.

Archer ran toward them, consternation on his face. “Lady Tess,” he said sharply. “My Lady Tess, cease!”

She turned toward him, her face unearthly as it seemed to glow from within. For an instant it appeared she might lash out at him. Then, with a soft cry, she closed her eyes and sagged. An instant later she lay in an unconscious heap.

“Tom!” Sara cried. “Oh, Tom, I cannot bear to lose you!” She looked up at Archer, her face stained with tears. “Why could she not heal him?”

Eiehsa knelt beside her and gripped her shoulders, drawing her into a tight embrace. “Hush, my lady, hush. It is in grief that we are born, and into grief we all must come.”

Archer knelt beside Tess, taking a quick survey. She was once again in that deep sleep that followed her attempts at healing. Then, not doubting the powers she had called on, he bent forward until his ear was next to Tom’s mouth and nose.

“He breathes,” he told Sara. “He lives.”

Then he strode away to find Jenah and the other clan elders. The power that Tess had called upon here would not go unnoticed. They needed to move again as swiftly as possible, before worse trouble came their way.

Whether she knew it or not, Tess had drawn the attention of someone even worse than the Bozandari, for the Enemy would not fail to detect such a huge use of power.

Their party was truly hunted now.

The clan elders moved swiftly, comprehending the threat as well as Archer, for they, unlike the races of men, understood such powers. Stoically the Anari swiftly buried their dead and tended the wounded. Stretchers were made for Tom and some of the other wounded, creating even greater burdens for the fleeing villagers, but none complained.

Ratha, Giri and Jenah, now riding Tom’s horse, rode out ahead to scout. As the fleeing villagers began their trek once more, with Tom in their midst and Sara riding beside his stretcher, Archer came to claim Tess.

As he had expected, she was still unconscious, but now her hands clasped the twelve stones he had glimpsed only briefly in the past. Carefully prying them from her fingers, he stashed them in the leather pouch that lay beside her on the ground and slipped the cord around her neck.

Then, swiftly, he mounted his own steed, and two Anari helped lift her onto the saddle before him. With his arms tight around her, keeping her safe, they followed the rest of the villagers.

He had much to think on. Perhaps too much. Tess had put them all at risk; he would have to warn her to use her powers sparingly. Now trouble would lie around every twist of the path ahead.

“She spoke the Old Tongue.”

Eiehsa had come up beside him, riding one of Gewindi-Tel’s few horses. He looked at her, then nodded. Tess’s head bobbed a little against his shoulder, and he adjusted his hold on her, trying to keep her comfortable as well as safe.

“Few know the Old Tongue,” Eiehsa said. “I myself have only a smattering. Where did she learn it?”

“I know not. Perhaps in the days before she lost her memory someone tutored her.”

“Mayhap, although I know of none but yourself with a complete command of the language.” She paused and sighed heavily. “My Lord, did you hear what she spoke?”

Archer shook his head.

“She told the gods that she forbade them to take Tom. And then she said, �Sisters, help me now. Sisters, rally your strength to me now. Help me now.’”

His head turned sharply toward her, and the tightening in his chest grew worse. “Are you sure?”

Eiehsa shrugged. “Nearly. As I said, my command of the Old Tongue is lacking. But…I am fairly certain that is what the Lady said. And in response, fire rained from the heavens, but only upon the Bozandari.”

Archer looked down at the small woman in his arms, finding it almost impossible to believe now what he had seen with his own eyes: that she had challenged the gods. Even more troubling, however, were the words she had spoken.

The last prayer of Theriel.




7


Once again the refugees began to move, although not without increased security. Jenah sent roving patrols deep into the surrounding mountains. Meanwhile, women at the rear of the column swept away any trace of their passage. Archer doubted that such efforts would be of much effect. The Enemy that tracked them was not relying on footprints in the desert sand. Still, if these arrangements made the Anari more aware of the danger and more alert to any sight or sound, then perhaps there was value in them after all.

By midafternoon, they had climbed higher into the mountains and begun to pass networks of caves. Archer had heard of such a redoubt but had never seen it. Now, at a silent command from Jenah, the Anari began to file into one of the cave entrances. As he joined them, Archer saw that the cave was well-selected. It and its side chambers were easily large enough to give shelter to all, and it offered excellent sightlines over any approach.

“Once,” Eiehsa said to Archer, “years ago, Gewindi-Tel came here to escape the slavers. When we returned, our village had been laid to waste. We never again fled our village, lest we deprive our heirs of their rich history. Long ago, we swore to the Ilduin that we would defend the Telnertah. Now, it seems, that oath must be broken.”

Archer, who still held the unconscious Tess with her head on his shoulder, answered in heavy tones. “It may be that the time to preserve the temples has passed.”

Eiehsa looked at him, her eyes unreadable, and finally nodded. “It may be that the temples have come to life.”

Archer looked down at the woman he held, still unsure what he thought of her and what she had done. “That may be,” he agreed. “May the gods save us all.”

“The gods,” said Eiehsa, with a mixture of bitterness and sarcasm, “are to blame for this all. Delude yourself not, Master Archer. ’Twas not simply the Enemy and his brother who brought the evil upon the world, nor the love and fury of the Ilduin. The gods themselves created such a power among men, then turned their backs and let that power take its own course. Once the Ilduin had made their awful choice, then the gods proclaimed their wrath and rent the world asunder, as if they could never have foreseen such an event. Mayhap it will be the Ilduin who save us from the gods, Lord Archer.”

Archer looked sharply at her, trying to read the knowledge that lay behind her words, but could find nothing more than what she had said. Nor did she seem inclined to add to it. Instead she turned and began to tend to the children. A gust of wind blew down from the glacier that ever topped this mountain, driving a chill down inside his cloak. Archer at once shrugged it higher on his shoulders and wrapped more of it around Tess.

His arms ached with the effort of holding her these many miles, yet he did not begrudge the ache. He begrudged no pain that life brought him, for penance and suffering were his adjudged lot. Nor did he feel sorry for himself. Atonement was his burden, and his alone. He walked to the entrance of the cave and looked out at the roiling black clouds. The Enemy sought them.

With a shake of his head, he turned and began to look for a safe place to lay Tess. The cavern was cold and dank, but the Anari were already building a large central fire, and a natural chimney somewhere above sucked the smoke away, while drawing in fresh air from the cave’s mouth.

Archer soon found Tom and Sara, and was pleased to note that Tom seemed to be stirring. Ratha and Giri appeared as if from nowhere to help him lay Tess upon her spread-out bedroll. For an instant she appeared lifeless; then, to Archer’s vast relief, she rolled onto her side and curled up.

“How is Tom?” he asked Sara.

She looked up, her face much calmer now, and with perhaps even the hint of a smile. “He improves. He is dreaming, and from time to time he murmurs. His wounds appear healed.” But then she looked at Tess, and her face saddened. “But what it cost her!”

“I think it cost you, as well,” Archer said, squatting down to take her chin in his hand and turn her face so he could better see it. “No Ilduin has ever called such force from the sky without the aid of her sisters. Whether you knew or not, she drew on your power at that moment.”

Sara shook her head. “That is fine. What does it signify if I tire? Tom is alive.”

Archer merely nodded, then rose, feeling suddenly very old and very tired. “Keep an eye on Tess, I pray you. I need to speak to the elders.”

Then he strode away across the cavern floor toward the fire, where the Gewindi elders were gathering. Women all, they were the lifeblood of the clan, the keepers of knowledge and the arbiters of all problems.

They warmly invited him to sit with them, making space near the comforting flames. For a while they spoke little, as if gathering their resources and thoughts. At a second fire nearby, the cooking had already begun, and the smells of food hung in the air.

Eiehsa finally spoke, her voice deep with the knowledge of many years. “The prophesied times are upon us,” she announced.

Five other heads bobbed in agreement.

“For the first time in our lives, we have seen the true power of the Ilduin unleashed. This can mean but one thing.”

“Ardebal,” one of the women said.

“Yes,” Eiehsa agreed, seeming to stare into Archer’s soul. “Ardebal has awakened. And he stalks Gewindi-Tel.”

It had been two generations of men since Archer had heard the Anari name for the Enemy. And something in the old woman’s face said she knew far more than any was meant to know.

“Yes,” Archer said. “I believe he looks for Tess and Sara. Earlier on our journey, Lady Tess said that she felt what seemed like an oily presence trying to crawl into her mind. I had thought this was perhaps the hive mind of Lantav Glassidor, whom she slew in Lorense. But during that fray, and at times since, I have sensed the presence of the old Enemy. I think perhaps it was he who tried to crawl into the Lady’s mind, and he still who seeks to capture her.”

“Well might that be,” Eiehsa said. “But you know more of this than you have said. You know far too much of the Enemy to be merely a passing mortal. Long are the legends of your life, Master Archer, even counted in the days of the Anari. It is not merely Ladies Tess and Sara whom the Enemy seeks. He seeks you, too, does he not?”

Archer paused for a long moment, then finally nodded. “Yes, Mother. It may be that he does.”

“And do you know why?” Eiehsa pressed. “It behooves us all to know exactly where we stand in this morass, lest we step onto what we think be firm rock and instead sink into a quicksand.”

For long moments Archer stared into the leaping flames of the fire. Around his heart, an ancient carapace began to crack, and into the cracks seeped a pain nearly as old as the world. Along with the pain came a harsh certainty. He turned his head to look once again at Eiehsa.

“I am,” he said, his words weighted as if with lead, “Annuvil.”

“The elder brother,” Eiehsa said. “Beloved of Theriel, against whom Ardred made the war that ended the First Age.”

“Aye, Mother,” Archer said. “It was my brother and I that destroyed the world.”

“Nonsense,” the woman said. “Unless the old tales be twisted by the mists of time, it was your brother whose selfishness and jealousy led to the founding of Dederand. It was your brother who raised an army against the people of Samarand, and kidnapped and murdered Theriel on your wedding night. It was your brother who inflamed the rage of the Ilduin and brought down the rain of fire. Bear ye not the weight of his ill deeds, Lord Annuvil. It profits you nothing and costs you much.”

“I bear only the weight of my own deeds,” Archer said. “But that weight enough is heavy for a soul. Offer me not the blessing prayer of Adis, for I cannot turn from who I am, or what I have done. But let us speak no more of this, I beseech you. The present times are dark enough without the darkness of the past laid also upon them.”

Eiehsa and the other Anari closed their eyes in the same instant, and their lips began moving, mouthing words Archer could not discern. For a long moment it was as if every sound had been sucked from the cave; the fire itself seemed to stand still between them. Then, as one, their eyes opened.

“The pain of Annuvil and the Ilduin stands among us,” Eiehsa said, rising, her voice carrying throughout the caves. “Born of the jealousy of Ardebal, simmered in his hate, seared by his rage. Good stood as evil threatened, yet the soot of the evil still blackened the sky.”

All talk among the Anari had ceased; every eye in the cavern was upon the old woman, who spoke with a rolling resonance that seemed to draw strength from the rocks themselves.

“Now,” she continued, “in the darkness, good stands once more, and once more the scent of black hate hangs in the air. Our people are enslaved, our Tel-mates murdered and our telner turned to ash. Silent were the Anari in the last days of the First Age, standing apart and claiming no side in the madness. But silent are we no more. If it be Ardebal whose evil darkens our lives, let it be Annuvil and the Ilduin whose goodness leads us into the light.”

Try as he might to find words with which to interrupt, Archer could but sit and listen, knowing what was to come, knowing the awful price that would come with it. A part of his soul rebelled against the thought, for he wished to add no more death to the tally in his account. Yet he knew that could not be. Death had stalked him through the ages, and now it stood up behind him once more.

Eiehsa’s voice rose to a crescendo. “Lord Archer, Lady Tess, Lady Sara, into your hands I deliver the heart and might of Gewindi-Tel. And, I dare say, the heart and might of all my people. We shall go to Anahar and there make firm our pledge to your service. For it is in your service that we shall find our delivery.”

She bowed her head slightly, then extended her hands. “I beseech Elanor to grant us healing through these brave souls who have journeyed here to join us. And upon Keh-Bal, I swear to their service the fealty of Gewindi-Tel. Let any who dissent speak now, or be bound by my oath.”

The silence in the cavern seemed to thunder in Archer’s ears. None spoke. None saved himself from what Archer knew was to come.

“We are thine, Lord Archer,” Eiehsa said, offering her clasped hands. “Our wisdom, our dreams, our blood, we put into your hands. Honor us by accepting this oath.”

Seconds seemed to drag into hours as Archer weighed his decision. To refuse the oath would be an act of unspeakable rudeness among the Anari. To accept it might well be their death sentence. He felt a presence and was astonished to see Tess conscious and at his side, with Sara, Giri and Ratha close behind. They too looked to him for guidance, and had throughout this long journey. It was as if the weight of all hope rested on his shoulders and his alone.

Then a look passed between Tess and Sara, and Archer realized in that moment that he was assuming too much. They, too, as Ilduin, would bear the weight and worry of the Anari oath. And, he realized, they, too, had gifts to offer and a prize after which the Enemy lusted.

Tess nodded silently.

Archer turned and clasped Eiehsa’s hands. “I accept your oath, Mother. And I pray that I and my companions will be worthy of your service.”



After a meal that was almost a feast, as if the Anari were celebrating having bound their fate to Archer, Eiehsa and the other clan mothers began to relate stories of the First Age.

Archer slipped away to stand guard at the cave mouth, perhaps because he couldn’t bear the recitation yet again of past horrors. Except, thought Tess as she settled in to listen, he had shared those tales himself, almost as if he felt a need to remind his listeners of the dangers of arrogance and jealousy.

It amazed her, however, to realize that he was the Annuvil of the story he told, the elder brother who had won the love of Theriel, only to find himself caught up in a war, a widower almost before he was wed.

She wished she might reach out to him in some way to ease a pain that must have ridden him hard these many years, but he had taken himself away somewhere. Besides, she doubted any words she might speak could heal a wound so old and deep.

“The Firstborn,” Eiehsa said, her voice carrying to all ears that cared to listen, “were immortal, created by the gods to fill the world with beauty and song. But they were also created in the image of the gods, and with that came less than perfection, for the gods themselves are not perfect.”

Immortal? Tess’s mind couldn’t seem to grasp the idea that Archer was immortal. In fact, thinking about it, she could only consider immortality to be a curse. The joys of life were ever so much sweeter when the days were numbered.

But even the notion of immortality paled beside the prospect that the gods were imperfect and had made their creations with the same imperfections.

She tucked that nugget away for later consideration, for she sensed that therein lay a very important bit of information.

Important enough, perhaps, to save the Anari from their persecutors.

The clan mothers began to sing together again, this time with a rhythm and melody that seemed to creep along the spine and seize the mind in a spell.

Then Eiehsa flung a handful of sparkling sand upon the fire, and out of the flames a figure grew.




8


All sound in the cavern vanished except for the singing of the clan mothers. Even the flames, leaping higher, seemed to dance. The reddish glow from the fire caught on the stalactites, making it seem that bloody teeth surrounded them, ready to bite.

The figure continued to grow out of the flames, yet it was not of the flames. It was the figure of a young woman, dressed in white. A beautiful woman with cascading blond hair and eyes the color of a midsummer sky. Taller she grew, until she towered over them gracefully, so that all in the cavern might see her.

The hem of her long dress appeared to ruffle on a breeze not borne of the fire from which she sprang. In her hands she held a small bouquet of white roses, and on her lips was the soft smile of love.

She reached out one hand and clasped another’s, a figure that coalesced beside her. He was tall, taller than she, and his face was marked with both love and youth. Long dark hair he had, and an innocence about him that made the heart ache.

He drew closer to the lady, and their lips met, sealing a kiss that whispered of eternity.

Then another appeared, a fair and beautiful man whose face also shone with youth, and overshadowed the dark man. But on his face there was no love, only lust and anger.

An instant later the fair and beautiful young man wrested the woman away from the darker one. She struggled against him, but only briefly, for he killed her with a savage blow of his sword before she could defend herself.

Then the images from the fire became ugly and dark, a quickening kaleidoscope of war, of death. At the head of an army the dark man sought vengeance, his sword raised high. He was met on the field of battle by the beautiful golden man and another army.

The view changed again, filled with fallen bodies, and weeping men and women. A city burned.

Then a circle of eleven appeared, eleven women who joined hands and began to sing together.

A new vision, of fire raining from the sky, of a city blasted until nothing was left but a plain of black glass as far as the eye could see.

Then back to the circle of women, who stood tearfully, with their heads bowed. Then, one by one, they dropped each other’s hands and looked around as if waking from a dreadful dream.

As one, they crumpled to the ground in despair, as if they hated what they had done.

And one by one they were gently carried away by the Anari.

Finally a huge temple began to rise from the flames, carved by Anari hands, guided in every detail by the women from the circle, women who now looked haunted and full of grief.

“Anahar,” said Eiehsa, her voice rising above the other mothers. “The temple that was given to all of us to keep the knowledge alive. The temple of atonement. The temple we guard with our lives.”

Turning, she cast her gaze upon Sara and Tess. “You have been sent to learn the mysteries. We have showed you the tale behind them.”

Her voice rose, reaching even the farthest recesses of the cavern. “We have been chosen. We are the Guardians. Our lives are but grains of sand in the river of time, but the temple is eternal. It will be our salvation. Hearten yourselves, my brothers and sisters, for the fight for our freedom will be but the first step on the long road to defeat our ultimate enemy.”

She pointed to fire again, flinging yet another small puff of sparkling dust, and the image of the fair and beautiful man rose again, now with his face twisted by hate. “Never forget he would see us all dead, for he has nothing to live for except power. Keep him in mind. He ended the First Age and would gladly end the second. He comes cloaked in beauty, with his heart full of death. He is Ardebal, Lord of Chaos!”

For an instant the figure loomed over them all, threatening; then, in an eyeblink, everything returned to its natural state.

The clan mothers sat, appearing exhausted; the fire settled back into its pit. Only the angry red teeth of the cave remained to remind them of what they had just seen.

Tess felt a hand steal into hers and turned to see Sara. She squeezed the younger woman’s chilled fingers, hoping the gesture was reassuring. But in Sara’s eyes she read the same feeling that filled her own heart: How were the two of them supposed to do this impossible task that had just been set for them?



Sara returned to find Tom still asleep on his pallet. For a moment his eyes flickered open, and it almost appeared as if they glowed orange, though she knew it was only the reflection of the fire’s glow. Still, his face was pale, and weakness was evident in his limbs.

Acting on an impulse almost beyond her understanding, she cradled his head in her arms and opened her bodice, tucking his lips to her nipple. His response was equally instinctive, as he began to suckle in his sleep. Sara caught her breath, both from the pleasure of the touch and from the realization that she could feel liquid emerging from her breast, flowing into his mouth. For a moment she wondered how this could be, for she had never been with child and certainly never delivered one. Yet the moment seemed to fit with her heart’s call, and she closed her eyes and hummed a quiet tune as he nursed.

“I have heard the tales of Ilduin succor, saved only for the lady’s mate and children,” Eiehsa whispered.

Sara opened her eyes with a start, then caught her cry before it emerged as she looked into the old woman’s kind face.

“Forgive me, Lady Sara,” Eiehsa said. “I did not mean to startle you. But not often does one witness a miracle, though many have my eyes beheld these past days. Still, this seems to me the greatest of all, for the love of the Ilduin was deep in legend, and their milk is said to heal even the most shattered soul.”

“I know not why I did this,” Sara said, stroking Tom’s hair as he now slept at her breast. “I knew only that I must do it.”

“That is often the way of love, Lady Sara. To ponder the reasons is often to miss the moment in its passing. You gave yourself into that moment, and even now color is returning to the young lad’s face. It was your love that he needed, Lady. Your love and the milk of your kindness. And that you gave. I would that we all gave so freely.”

Sara smiled and bowed her head. “Thank you, Mother. Though I fear I am not worthy of such praise. It is neither effort nor sorrow to care for one I love so dearly. But can I carry that same burden for the world at large? For that is the burden which seems placed upon me, and upon Lady Tess. We are unskilled and can act only on the calling of the moment. I fear we shall need much more than that if we hope to prevail.”

“Now, now,” Eiehsa said, reaching out to stroke her shoulder. “Tomorrow will be upon us soon enough, and in its coming it will bring troubles of its own. Fret not for those, my child. Simply care for Tom in this moment and trust your Ilduin blood to guide you in the next.”

Sara felt Tom sag into a deeper sleep, and she gently fixed her bodice and lowered him to the pallet. Then she turned to Eiehsa, tears glistening in her eyes.

“I fear I would slay a thousand souls to save him, Mother. As I watched the legend in the fire and recalled how I felt when Tom was wounded, I knew all too well why my sisters came together to mete such destruction. Love is a great thing, Mother. But it can also be a curse.”

“That it can, Lady Sara,” Eiehsa said. “And it is upon each of us to choose which it will be. Ardebal’s love created the fire, Lady Sara. Your love creates healing.”

“But also have I bled fire, Mother. When my own mother was murdered before my eyes, I bled Ilduin fire upon her killer and tormented him into his last moments. I am no goddess of life, and I know that. I pray that I also am no goddess of death.”

“Your young heart carries a heavy load,” Eiehsa said, squeezing her hand. “The past and the future can crush you in their vice if you permit it. Perhaps the best that you can do is to banish both and live in the kindness of each moment. That is all any of us can do.”

Sara sighed. “In this moment, then, I long for sleep. If you will pardon me?”

“Of course, Lady,” Eiehsa said. “I too need rest, as do we all. Let us pray for a sleep that carries us into the heart of Elanor and heals our pain.”

“Or,” Sara said, “for a sleep that carries me into the heart of my darling Tom and nestles him forever in mine.”

“Ahh,” Eiehsa cried softly, a wide smile breaking over her face. “To be young and in love again. It warms my old bones, child. Thank you.”

With that, she left for the circle of her companions, and Sara slid in next to Tom, holding him to her, praying that his dreams would find her heart, as well.

* * * *

As others were falling asleep in the cavern, Tess made her way outside to find Archer. He proved to be but one of several who were standing guard over the cave and its occupants, but he stood apart. He always stood apart, she realized. In some indefinable way, he was separate.

The thought of that loneliness filled her heart with a sorrowful ache as she approached him. He didn’t turn his head, didn’t take his eyes from the mountains and valleys he watched so intently, but he knew it was she.

“Why do you not sleep with the others, Lady?”

She paused, still six paces behind him. “Sleep eludes me,” she said finally, then crossed the distance to his side.

He gave a brief nod but still failed to look at her. She watched his face, chiseled harsh by the starlight, cast in secrecy by the deep shadows around his eyes. He looked like a figure out of myth—or nightmare. Sometimes she found she wasn’t sure which. Nor did she care. The sight of him always struck a chord deep within her.

“So,” he said, “you have seen the story of the end of the First Age.”

“Aye.” She turned her gaze from him to look out over the shadowy rills of the mountains. “’Twas much as you told it.”

“There is only one tale. It can be told in many forms, but there is only one tale.”

She nodded, neither knowing nor caring whether he saw. “I find,” she said slowly, “that much as I thought I was confused and frightened when I awoke amidst the carnage of the caravan without memory, I grow more confused with each passing day, not more enlightened.”

“’Tis always that way when one realizes that much is demanded of one…but exactly what that might be remains a mystery.”

“Aye.” She sighed. “I’m also frightened. I’m frightened that I might fail when so much hope is placed in me.” Her fingers rose to caress the bag of stones around her neck.

“We all share the same fear, my Lady,” he said, his voice a deep, quiet rumble. “This time was foretold for centuries, but foretold or not, I think none of us is prepared.”

Tess might have laughed at that, except for the lock that dread held on her heart. “I fear for Tom.”

Now he did glance at her. “Why? He appears to be recovering.”

She gripped the stones tightly. “How did I get the stones back? I saw with my own two eyes as they sank into his flesh and sealed his wounds.”

Archer shook his head. “I know not. I found them in your hands when you were unconscious after the healing. I returned them to the bag, and the bag to your neck.”

“Did you see what they did to him?”

Archer hesitated. “In all honesty, my Lady, I was distracted by the rain of fire from the sky.”

Would she could laugh, for somehow his response was so understated it seemed to cry out for humor. But laughter had deserted her, at least for now.

“I don’t know how that happened, either.”

“You spoke the last prayer of Theriel.” Now he turned toward her, facing her, his posture almost accusing. “If you cannot remember anything before the caravan was slaughtered, how is it you recall a prayer that has not been spoken in centuries?”

Tess shook her head, feeling even more frightened, and now frustrated, as well. “I do not recall my words.”

“I do. They were spoken with Theriel’s dying breath, calling her sisters to her, to help her. The result was the utter destruction of Dederand.”

“The plain of glass,” she said, remembering the visions in the fire.

“Aye, that was the result. Such power was never before unleashed, nor since. Until you.”

“But…” Her throat clogged, and she could not speak in her own defense.

He surprised her then, by reaching out to touch her shoulder. “I am not saying you cast down the rain of fire. I am saying only that you spoke Theriel’s last prayer, and your sisters, wherever they may be, answered and saved us from the Bozandari.”

Her mind reeling, Tess spread her hands helplessly. “I know nothing of this. For the sake of everyone, I must somehow learn! I want to see no more blasted cities, even in tales told around a fire.”

His arm moved around her, drawing her close to his side, within the shelter of his cape. The warmth was welcome, the comfort even more so.

“That is why we go to Anahar, my Lady,” he said, his words soft enough that they reached only her ears. “There at the main temple, all the secrets of the Ilduin are inscribed. ’Tis said that the adept can learn merely by walking through it and pondering the story’s many meanings. It is, I am told, a story that tells itself across the ages, through time, a key to the powers of the Ilduin.”

“And then what?” she asked, a bitterness near tears filling her.

“Then we do what we must.”

“I don’t wish to create any more ugliness!”

“At times, Lady,” he said his voice laden with pain, “we are given no choice. We cannot let Ardred rule. You saw him through Lantav. You have brushed against his evil. He would turn this entire world and all in it to dust to satisfy his lust for power and revenge.”

Remembering the moments of which Archer spoke, Tess shuddered. Finally, in a wisp of a voice, she replied, “No. We cannot let him succeed. But what did I do to Tom when I healed him?”

“That I cannot say. It is the first time I have ever seen cleansing Ilduin fire heal. He took that fire within him and was healed.” He repeated it as if it still amazed him. “Many are the ways of Ilduin healing, but never before has it been by fire.”




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