Verna’s eyes settled on the bowl. There was something in the bottom, and it wasn’t ashes.
She reached in and lifted out a small package wrapped in paper and tied with a bit of string. She turned it over in her fingers, inspecting it. This had to be it. This had to be what she was sent here for. But why leave it in here? The shield—no one but the Prelate could enter. This was the only place to put something if you didn’t want anyone but the Prelate to have it.
Verna pulled the ends of the bow and dropped the string back in the bow. Laying it in a palm, she lifted back the paper and stared at what was inside.
It was a journey book.
Finally, movement returned to her fingers and she extracted the book from the paper to thumb through the pages. Blank.
Journey books were objects of magic, like the dacra, that had been created by the same wizards who had invested the Palace of the Prophets with both Additive and Subtractive Magic. None since, for three thousand years, except Richard, had been born with Subtractive. Some had learned it through the calling, but none but Richard had been born with it.
Journey books had the ability to transmit messages; what was written in one with the stylus stored in the spine would appear by magic in its twin. As near as they could determine, the message written in one appeared in the twin simultaneously. Since the stylus could also be used to wipe old messages away, the books were never used up, and could be used over and over.
They had been carried by Sisters who went on journeys to recover boys born with the gift. More often than not, the Sisters had had to travel through the barrier, through the Valley of the Lost, going into the New World to recover the boy and put a Rada’Han around his neck so that the gift would not harm him while he learned to control his magic. Once beyond the barrier there was no turning back for instructions or guidance; one journey through and back was all that was possible for each Sister. Until now—Richard had destroyed the towers and their storms of spells.
A young boy with no understanding of the gift could not control it, and his magic sent out telltale signs that could be detected by Sisters at the palace who were sensitive to such disturbances in the flows of power. Not enough Sisters had this talent to risk sending them on journeys, so others were sent, and they carried a journey book to be able to communicate with the palace. If Sisters were to go after the boy, and something happened—he moved, for example—they would need guidance to find him in his new location.
Of course, a wizard could teach the boy to control the gift in order to avoid its many dangers, and in fact that was the preferred method, but wizards were not always available, or willing. The Sisters had long ago established an accord with the wizards in the New World. In the absence of a wizard, the Sisters of the Light were allowed to save a boy’s life by taking him to the Palace of the Prophets for training in the use of his gift. For their part, the Sisters had vowed never to take a boy who had a wizard willing to teach him.
It was a truce backed by a death sentence to any Sister who ever again entered the New World if the agreement were ever violated. Prelate Annalina had violated that agreement in order to bring Richard to the palace. Verna had been the unwitting instrument of the violation.
At any one time there could be several Sisters gone on a journey to recover a boy. Verna had found a whole box of journey books back in her office, tied together in matching pairs. The journey books were twinned, each working only with its correct twin. Precautions were always taken before a journey was undertaken; the two books were taken to separate locations and tested, just to be sure a Sister wasn’t sent off with the wrong book. Journeys were dangerous, that was why the Sisters also carried a dacra up their sleeve.
Usually, a journey lasted a few months, and on rare occasions they had lasted as long as a year. Verna’s journey had lasted over twenty years. Nothing like that had ever happened before, but then, it had been three thousand years since one like Richard had been born. Verna had lost twenty years she could never recover. She had aged in the outside world. The twenty-odd years of aging her body had undergone would have taken near to three hundred years at the Palace of the Prophets. She had not simply given up twenty years to go on Prelate Annalina’s mission; she had in reality given up close to three hundred years.
Worse, Annalina had known all along where Richard was. Even though she had done as she had in order to allow the proper prophecies to come to pass so they could stop the Keeper, it hurt that she had never told Verna that she was being sent out to throw away that much of her life as a decoy.
Verna reprimanded herself. She had not thrown anything away. She had been doing the Creator’s work. Just because she hadn’t known all the facts at the time made it no less important. Many people toiled their whole lives at meaningless things. Verna had toiled at something that had saved the world of the living.
Besides that, those twenty years were perhaps the best years of her life. She had been out in the world on her own, with two other Sisters of the Light, learning about strange places and strange peoples. She had slept under the stars, seen distant mountains, plains, rivers, rolling hills, villages, towns, and cities that few others had seen. She had made her own decisions and accepted the consequences. She had never had to read reports; she had lived the stuff of reports. No, she had not lost anything. She had gained more than any of the Sisters sitting back here for three hundred years would ever gain.
Verna felt a tear drop onto her hand. She reached up and wiped her cheek. She missed her journey. All that time she had thought she hated it, and only now did she realize how much it meant to her. She turned the journey book over in her trembling fingers, feeling the familiar size and weight—the familiar grain of the leather, the familiar three little bumps at the top of the front cover.
She jerked the book up to her eyes, looking in the candlelight. The three bumps, the deep scratch at the bottom of the spine—it was the same book. She couldn’t mistake her journey book, not after carrying it for twenty years. It was the very same book. She had looked at all the books in the box in her office, absently searching for this one, and she had not found it. It had been here.
But why? She held up the paper it had been wrapped in and saw there was writing on the paper. She held it near the candle in order to read it.
Guard this with your life.
She turned the paper over, but that was all it said. Guard this with your life.
Verna knew the Prelate’s hand. When she had been on her journey to recover Richard, and after she had found him but was forbidden to interfere with him in any way, or to use his collar to help control him, yet was expected to bring him back, a grown man, unlike any other they had ever recovered, she had sent an angry message to the palace: I am the Sister in charge of this boy. These directives are beyond reason if not absurd. I demand to know the meaning of these instructions. I demand to know upon whose authority they are given.
She had received back a message: You will do as you are instructed, or suffer the consequences. Do not presume to question the orders of the palace again. —In my own hand, The Prelate.
The message of reprimand the Prelate had sent her was burned in her memory. The handwriting was engraved in her memory. The hand on the piece of paper was the same.
That message had been a thorn in her side, forbidding her to do the very things she had been trained to do. It was only back at the palace that she discovered that Richard had Subtractive Magic, and had she used the collar he would have very likely killed her. The Prelate had been saving her life, but it nettled her that once again she had not been informed. Verna guessed that was what annoyed her the most: the Prelate not telling her why.
She understood, of course. There had been Sisters of the Dark at the palace, and the Prelate could not take any risk or the whole world would be consumed; but emotionally it still vexed her. Reason and passion were not always in agreement. As Prelate, she was coming to see that sometimes you couldn’t convince people of the need of something, and the only op
tion was simply to give an order. Sometimes you had to use people to do what what must be done.
Verna dropped the paper in the bowl and ignited it with a flow of Han. She watched it burn, just to be sure it was entirely reduced to ash.
Verna squeezed the journey book, her journey book, tightly in her hand. It was good to have it back. Of course, it wasn’t really hers, it belonged to the palace, but she had carried it so many years that it felt like hers, like an old, familiar friend.
The thought struck her abruptly—where was the other one? This book had a twin. Where was its twin? Who had it?
She regarded the book with sudden trepidation. She was holding something potentially dangerous, and once again Annalina was not telling her all of it. It was entirely possible that its twin was held by a Sister of the Dark. This could be Annalina’s way of telling her to find its twin, and she would find a Sister of the Dark. But how? She couldn’t simply write, ‘Who are you, and where are you?’ in the book.
Verna kissed her ring finger, her ring, and then stood.
Guard this with your life.
Journeys were dangerous. Sisters had been captured, and on occasion killed, by hostile peoples who were protected by magic of their own. In those instances, only her dacra, a knifelike weapon with the ability to instantly extinguish life, could protect her, if she were quick enough. Verna still had hers up her sleeve. On the back of her belt Verna had long ago sewn a pouch to secret the journey book and keep it safe.
She slipped the little book into its glovelike pouch. Verna patted her belt. It felt good to have the journey book back there.
Guard this with your life.
Dear Creator, who had the other?
When Verna burst through the door to her outer office, Sister Phoebe jumped up as if someone had stuck her in the rump with a sharp stick.
Her round face went red. “Prelate… you startled me. You weren’t in your office.… I thought you had gone to bed.”
Verna’s gaze swept the desk scattered with reports. “I thought I told you that you had done enough work for one day, and to go get some rest.”
Phoebe twisted her fingers together as she winced. “You did, but I remembered some tallies I had forgotten to verify, and I was afraid you would see them and call me to account, so I ran back to check the numbers.”
Verna had somewhere to go, but rethought how she had planned to go about it. She clasped her hands.
“Phoebe, how would you like to do a task that Prelate Annalina always trusted to her administrators?”
Sister Phoebe’s fingers stilled. “Really? What is it?”
Verna gestured back toward her office. “I’ve been out in my garden, praying for guidance, and it has come to me that in these trying times I should consult the prophecies. Whenever Prelate Annalina did the same, she always had her administrators clear the vaults so that she wouldn’t feel encumbered by prying eyes watching what she read. How would you like to order the vaults cleared for me, like her administrators did for her?”
The young woman bounced on the balls of her feet. “Really, Verna? That would be splendid.”
Young woman indeed, Verna thought in annoyance, they were the same age, even if they didn’t look it. “Let’s be off then. I have palace business to attend to.”
Sister Phoebe snatched up her white shawl, throwing it over her shoulders as she bolted through the door.
“Phoebe.” The round face peeked back around the doorframe. “If Warren is in the vaults, have him stay. I have a few questions, and he would be better able to direct me to the proper volumes than any of the others would. It will save me time.”
“All right Verna,” Phoebe said in a breathless voice. She liked doing paperwork, probably because it made her feel useful in a way she never would have until she had another hundred years of experience, but Verna had cut that time short by appointing her the Prelate’s administrator. The prospect of wielding orders, though, seemed to be of even more interest than paperwork. “I’ll run ahead and have them cleared by the time you get there.” She grinned. “I’m glad it was me here, instead of Dulcinia.”
Verna remembered how she and Phoebe used to be of such like personalities. Verna wondered if she really had such an immature temperament when Annalina had sent her on her journey. It seemed to her that in the years she had been gone she had grown older than Phoebe in more than just appearance. Perhaps she had simply learned more out in the world, rather than in the cloistered life of the Palace of the Prophets.
Verna smiled. “Almost seems like one of our old pranks, doesn’t it?”
Phoebe giggled. “Sure does, Verna. Except it won’t end in us stringing a thousand prayer beads.” She dashed off down the hall, her skirts and shawl flapping behind.
By the time Verna had made it down into the heart of the palace, to the huge, round, six-foot-thick stone door leading into vaults carved from the bedrock atop which sat the palace, Phoebe was just leading six Sisters, two novices, and three young men out. Novices and young men were given lessons at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes they were even awakened in the dead of night for lessons, such as ones down in the vaults. The Creator didn’t keep hours; they were expected to learn that in His work they didn’t, either. They all bowed as one.
“The Creator’s blessing on you,” Verna said to them as a group. She was about to apologize for chasing them from the vaults when they were busy, but she cut herself off, reminding herself that she was the Prelate and didn’t need to make excuses to anyone. The Prelate’s word was law, and was followed without question. Still, it was hard not to explain herself.
“All clear, Prelate,” Sister Phoebe said in an august tone. Phoebe inclined her head toward the room beyond. “Except the one you asked to see. He’s in one of the small rooms.”
Verna nodded to her assistant and then turned her attention to the novices, who were in a state of wide-eyed awe. “And how are your studies coming?”
Trembling like leaves on a quaking aspen, both girls curtsied. One swallowed. “Very well, Prelate,” she squeaked, her face going red.
Verna remembered the first time the Prelate had addressed her directly. It had seemed as if the Creator Himself had spoken. She remembered how much the Prelate’s smile had meant to her, how it had sustained and inspired her.
Verna squatted down and in each arm hugged a girl to herself. She kissed each forehead.
“If you ever have a need, don’t be afraid to come to me, that’s what I’m here for, and I love you like all the Creator’s children.”
Both girls beamed, and performed curtsies more steady the second time. Their round eyes stared at the gold ring on her finger. As if it had reminded them, they each kissed their own ring finger, whispering a prayer to the Creator. Verna did the same. Their eyes widened at the sight.
She held her hand out. “Would you like to kiss the ring that symbolizes the Light we all follow?” They nodded earnestly, going to a knee in turns to kiss the sunburst-patterned ring.
Verna squeezed each small shoulder. “What are your names?”
“Helen, Prelate,” one said.
“Valery, Prelate,” the other said.
“Helen and Valery.” Verna didn’t need to remind herself to smile. “Remember, novices Helen and Valery, that while there are others, such as the Sisters, who know more than you, and will teach you many things, there is no one closer to the Creator than you, not even me. We are all His children.”
Verna felt more than a little uncomfortable being the object of veneration, but she smiled and waved as the group headed off down the stone hall.
After they had rounded a corner, Verna pressed her hand to the cold metal plate set in the wall, the plate that was the keyway to the shield guarding the vaults. The ground shook beneath her feet as the huge, round door began to move. It was rare for the main vault door to be closed; except under special circumstances, only the Prelate ever sealed the entrance. She stepped into the vault as the door grated closed behind her,
leaving her in tomblike silence.
Verna passed the old, worn tables with papers scattered all over them, along with some of the simpler books of prophecy. The Sisters had been giving lessons. The lamps set about the carved stone walls did little to diminish a feeling of perpetual night. Long rows of bookcases stretched off to ether side among massive pillars supporting the vaulted ceiling.
Warren was in one of the back rooms. The small, hollowed-out alcoves were restricted, and so had separate doors and shields. The room he was in was one with the oldest prophecies written in High D’Haran. Few people knew High D’Haran, among them Warren, and Verna’s predecessor.
When she stepped into the lamplight, Warren, slouched against the table with his arms folded atop it, only glanced up. “Phoebe told me you wanted to use the vaults,” he said in a distracted voice.
“Warren, I need to talk to you. Something has happened.”
He flipped a page in the book before him. He didn’t look up. “Yes, all right.”
She frowned and then drew a chair to the table beside him, but didn’t sit. With a flick of her wrist, Verna brought a dacra to her left hand. The dacra, with a silver rod in place of a blade, was used the same as a knife, but it wasn’t the wound it caused that killed; the dacra was a weapon possessing ancient magic. Used in conjunction with the wielder’s Han, it drained the life force from the victim, regardless of the nature of the wound. There was no defense against its magic.
Warren looked up with tired, red eyes as she leaned closer. “Warren, I want you to have this.”
“That’s a weapon of the Sisters.”
“You have the gift, it will work for you as well as me.”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“Protect yourself.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
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