“I know,” Greum said. “But you can separate her voice from the others as you’ve separated Iomhar’s. It’s difficult and even dangerous, but she’s there, and perhaps you and I should know her thoughts.”
“Then show me,” Orla said impulsively, and she heard her anamacha burst into conflicting voices, none of which she could easily distinguish. There was mocking laughter, and amidst their amusement, voices. . . .
Then, another voice:
Greum was watching her; he could see the anamacha next to her and knew she was hearing their voices. “Tomorrow, I will help you make the attempt,” he said. “If you wish to try.”
Orla was afraid to blink, not wanting him to see her tears. She only nodded.
* * *
The landscape of Magh da Chèo seemed more furious and stormy than usual, but perhaps that was only a reflection of her own fear and uncertainty. The thought of meeting her mother within the anamacha was at once compelling and terrifying, and Orla couldn’t decide which of the emotions was the stronger.
Brilliant slashes of lightning clawed at a black sky through which sullen gray shreds of clouds scurried, propelled by a gale that shrieked in Orla’s ears and pressed her cloak tight against her skin. The ghosts of the draoi within her anamacha surrounded her, their faces shifting and fleeting. Their voices were the howling of the wind and the booming of the thunder.
“It’s simple enough—you only have to think of her,” was all Greum Red-Hand had told her in preparation, when the two of them met in Greum’s chambers. “Call her to you as you’ve called Iomhar before. She’ll come to you; she won’t be able to deny your summons. She won’t want to.”
Orla saw the ghost that was Iomhar already gliding toward her, and she gestured with her hand.
At first there was no response from the crowd of dead draoi around her, then those in front of her slid aside as if pushed, and one shade glided toward her. Its arms were outstretched in invitation, and Orla could see her mother’s face shimmering above it.
With that statement, the other draoi within the anamacha all began to shout and laugh and taunt her as one.
Their mockery sparked in Orla like flint striking steel. She shouted at them aloud, her fury mirroring the storm around them:
There was more jeering laughter at that, and underneath Orla heard a single woman’s deep amusement that seemed to shiver the air around her, but the voices faded. Her mother’s taibhse remained in front of her, waiting.
The answer poured from Orla’s mind unbidden.
The anamacha loosed a many-voiced wail in response, and lightning flared from cloud to ground around them, flinging dirt and rocks from the blackened earth, though none came toward Orla and the ghosts of the anamacha seemed entirely untroubled. Yet the face of her mother’s taibhse remained oddly stoic, and Orla found herself wondering whether this was truly her mother before her. The anamacha heard the thought as well.
Hearing that, Orla gasped.
Orla could feel a hot wetness tracking down her face. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, angrily.
Orla started to answer, then stopped.
Her mother’s ghost simply nodded. She came up to Orla, placed its hands in hers.
Orla closed her eyes, remembering the conversation with Ceanndraoi Greum and trying to visualize that moment as clearly as she could. It was harder than she had thought possible; even such a recent memory was slippery, as difficult to grasp and hold as a salmon swimming past in a stream.
Other voices from the anamacha joined in then—
But the taibhse’s hands tightened on hers, and the anamacha—all of them—sighed as one a few breaths later as the specter of Voada released Orla’s hands.
Orla answered.
Orla felt a shift in the anamacha at that. Voada’s specter slid away, fadi
ng into the crowd of the others within the anamacha, and there was a sense of a greater presence moving toward her like a gathering storm. A new voice dominated the chatter of the others, rendering them silent.
With the question, the presence rushed toward her as the other ghosts wailed and shouted in alarm. A new wild storm broke around Orla—a gale howled, hard rain tore at her, lightning crashed to the ground nearly at her feet as thunder deafened her. The lightning’s heat burned her, the concussion tossing her violently to the ground as if some giant had plucked her up and hurled her down again. She could feel the storm gathering energy again, and she desperately tried to force her mind away from Magh da Chèo and the anamacha.
She fell into her own world with a scream.
* * *
“Orla!” she heard Greum Red-Hand call to her, and she opened her eyes to find him crouched over her. The expression on his face struck her as odd; he appeared more disappointed than concerned. “What happened? Did your mother come when you called? Did she attack you?”
Orla barely heard the barrage of questions. Part of her was still back in Magh da Chèo, still listening to the fading echo of the anamacha’s voices. She realized that she had collapsed and was lying crumpled on the rug spread over the wooden floor of Greum’s chamber. She forced herself to sit up, closing her eyes as the room tilted and spun around her. She saw Ceiteag enter from an adjoining room and hand Greum a mug that he then passed to Orla. She gulped eagerly at the cool water it held. Ceiteag remained in the room, watching and listening.
“I spoke to her,” she said. Her voice sounded weak and cracked compared to the roar of the Moonshadow.
“What did she say?”
“She asked how I felt about what you were asking of me, Ceanndraoi. Then . . .” Orla swallowed hard. “Then the Moonshadow tried to come forward.”
Ceiteag sucked in a breath, and Greum cocked his head toward her. “The Moonshadow? You’re certain?”
Orla nodded. “Yes. I could feel it. The power . . .” Orla took a long shuddering breath, putting down the mug. “But I sent it away. I did what you told me to do. I didn’t let it touch me.”
Greum was staring at her, almost scowling, and Orla realized then why he’d suggested she seek out her mother in the anamacha. It wasn’t so that Orla could tell her that Greum realized he should have helped Voada, that he wanted Orla to join him to succeed where Voada had failed. The Moonshadow itself had said it: An anamacha can do nothing on their own. We are in the thrall of a living draoi, the weapon clasped in her hand. There had been no need to ask permission of Voada or the Moonshadow or any of the shades within. They were all bound to Orla, dangerous but powerful prisoners that she could force to do her bidding.
No, Greum had expected Orla to fail, to be unable to control Voada’s presence. He’d expected her to die in the attempt and set the Moonshadow’s anamacha free once more.
Which would leave some other draoi available to bond with the Moonshadow and use the anamacha. She was certain of it. She wondered who it was to have been: Ceiteag? Greum himself? Some potential draoi without an anamacha? She didn’t know if a draoi could abandon his or her anamacha once they were bonded.
Orla forced herself to stand, shunning the hand that Greum extended to help her up. She could see all three of their anamachas, dim in the sunlit room: his hovering near him, Ceiteag’s near the door of the other room, her own at the outer door as if waiting for her. “I’m tired,” she told Greum. “Where’s Sorcha? I’d like to go to my chambers and rest.”
“Of course. I’ll have one of the servants call for her.” Before he moved to the door, though, he stared at her once more. “The Moonshadow . . . you met it? Truly?”
“Aye, I did,” she told him. She brought her shoulders back, matching his glare. “And my mother also. And I’m not afraid to meet either of them again, Ceanndraoi. I’m not afraid of them at all.”
She wondered whether he could hear the lie in her voice.
7
The Great-Voice Speaks
ALTAN’S KNEE THROBBED UNDERNEATH the desk behind which he sat.
He leaned forward in his chair to hand the messenger the sealed parchment roll in its oiled wrapper along with a heavy leather pouch of coins, but held onto the pouch as the man reached out to take it. He stared hard at him: a middle-aged Cateni from the town of Muras on the River Meadham, dressed in the plain clothing of a merchant. “You understand whom this must reach? No one else can be permitted to read this—no matter what you need to do to prevent that.”
The man nodded. “Of course.”
“And you understand that if you fail to deliver it and if you don’t bring me his reply, your life and those of your entire family are forfeit?”
“Have I ever failed you in the past, Commander?” the man asked. “I’ve done this nearly a hand of times already, after all. You can trust me.”
“Good. I’ll look forward to seeing you again within a moon. Don’t spare the horses—I’ve given you enough to buy what you need.”
Another nod. Altan released the pouch, and it and the parchment quickly vanished under the Cateni’s cloak. “I’ll see you soon with the reply, Commander,” the man said.
“See that you do,” Altan told him and waved his hand in dismissal. The man bowed and walked backward from the room.
Tolga entered as the man left, closing the door behind the Cateni. He was holding a parchment roll similar to the one Altan had given the messenger, though Altan could see that the wax seal had been marked with the Great-Voice’s insignia. “You’d have his entire family killed?” Tolga commented. “Truly?”
“No,” Altan admitted, “but I want him to think that. Money isn’t enough to buy trust, so I leaven it with threats. And what is that you have?”
Tolga looked at the rolled parchment in his hand as if suddenly remembering it. “Oh! One of the Great-Voice’s overdressed and abrasive messengers just delivered this.” Tolga handed the parchment to Altan. Altan broke the seal and unrolled it, scanning the words there.
Commander Savas is to meet with Emperor Pashtuk and myself tomorrow midday to discuss the Cateni problem and our options to deal with it.
Options. For a soldier there was only one option to discuss.
Altan sighed heavily, laying the parchment on the desk. He rubbed at his aching knee.
“Bad news?” Tolga asked.
“Is there ever any other kind?” Altan replied. He handed the roll to Tolga. “Here. Burn this, then make sure that you get the new whites ready for tomorrow. We have to make a show of them.”
* * *
Altan rode toward the Great-Voice’s palace with Tolga standing in the traces, holding the reins of two magnificent white geldings that Emperor Pashtuk had sent to Altan a few days before, a gift for his quick action at the Great Temple. Altan had to smile, watching Tolga’s muscular back as he deftly handled the powerful but skittish steeds, but he also shook his head. The geldings might one day be worth what the emperor had undoubtedly paid for them, but not now. They were barely able to tolerate the crowds along Savur’s wide boulevard, their eyes wide, with Tolga reining them back at every sudden loud noise. The pair would be utterly crazed and useless on a crowded, chaotic, and noisy battlefield. No, the gray-and-black pair back in the stable that he’d had since he’d lost Lucian and their last two warhorses on Onglse were far superior. The emperor’s gifts were showy but—at least for the moment—useless in any re
al situation.
But it wouldn’t do for the emperor to see Altan without his present; Altan understood that was simply part of the strategy and tactics of politics. Altan watched the muscles on Tolga’s arms bunching as he kept tight control over the pair and heard the man cursing them under his breath.
“Tolga, it really won’t do to let the emperor or any of his minions hear you calling his lovely gifts ‘twin stinking white turds’ and ‘ball-less boar spawn,’ though I appreciate the sentiments,” Altan chided gently.
“Sorry, Commander,” Tolga answered without looking back. “These two might be from fine stock, but whoever trained them should be put in the harness so I could whip them instead. It’s going take a year or more to undo what’s been done with them.”
Altan chuckled at that. A movement above them caught his eye: a goshawk gliding across the sky with two much smaller thrushes chasing it, climbing above the hawk and diving toward it to peck at the raptor’s wings and body. As Altan watched, the goshawk continued to flee as its attackers harried it until all three vanished behind the palace walls.
“Look how the thrushes protect their nest and young even when the predator is larger and stronger . . . and how they’re able to force it to retreat,” Altan mused aloud.
This time Tolga did glance back quickly. “Commander?”
“Sorry,” Altan told him. “I was talking mostly to myself. Do you believe in omens, Tolga?”
Tolga yanked hard on the reins to turn the geldings toward the palace gates and the guards waiting there. “I suppose,” he said. “My mother always said that our plow horse gave a loud whinny just as I was born and that it was an omen that I was destined to deal with horses. And here I am.”
Altan smiled. The guards scurried to push open the gate as they approached, and they passed between the imperial banners placed there because the emperor was in residence. Altan glanced up again at the sky—the goshawk and thrushes were gone. “And here I am as well,” he added as the chariot moved past the banners into the courtyard beyond and Tolga pulled the horses to a stop near the steps leading up to the palace’s main door. Already servants had rushed over to take the reins from Tolga, and well-dressed attendants were hurrying down the stairs to escort Altan. Tolga leaped down from the traces and stood alongside the chariot. “Let me help you, Commander.” Normally Altan would have ignored that, but his knee still ached and throbbed, and so he allowed Tolga to take his arm and support him as he descended.
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