Each time Liath had slept, she found herself as a strange quiet woman with cool gold-dust skin and memories as old as time. Watching Morgan through eyes of amethyst and topaz, touching him with diamond tipped fingers.
At the very heart of the high mountain, Morgan reached deep into living stone. Fingers touched and closed around a glowing stone embedded in granite. Man and mountain screamed in unison as the Starstone shard burned into his hand.
Liath shot to her feet, echoing the pain, staggering as the floor heaved and trembled. Arms outstretched, she merged into the cave side, racing to help Morgan, trying to sooth the hurt relayed through him into the rocks. Acting without thought or fear, she reached him, knelt in a small space created by the force of his pain. Crouching beside Morgan, she stared at the glowing shard in his hand, watching as the light slowly died from it, leaving behind a dull, elongated dark purple triangle; the third ray of the five-pointed Starstone.
Morgan turned his head towards her, a questioning look in his eyes. She shook her head and pulled him to his feet. Frowning, he replaced the shard inside Delga's heart and returned with Liath to the tiny cave. “I shaped the land in your likeness,” he said, watching her face as she inspected the mark on his right palm.
She sighed and moved away to the cave-mouth, not wanting him to tell her that. “I know...I dreamed...”
He followed, resting his hands on her shoulders. “I need you, Liath,” he said softly. “I knew your name even when I'd forgotten mine.”
Unseen by the High Lord, tears trickled down the girl's cheeks, and echoed by the mountain, tiny drops of moisture squeezed from the rocks and fell as crystals to the floor. Morgan turned at the tinkling sounds they made on landing, bent and picked one up on the pad of his finger. He touched it to his tongue, tasted salt, and his heart ached with love and Liath's pain.
“I saw a man,” he said, straightening up and slipping the tiny crystal into the pocket of his pants.
“A man?” Liath asked. “Where? When?”
“Some time past, but since we've been here. It was like seeing him through a mist. I know him, but I can't put a name to the face. It was thin and pale, with green eyes. He was watching me, wanting to know what I was doing. I was about to speak his name when he vanished; I couldn't remember who he was.”
“I don't know anyone like that. Maybe he was a wraith – it's so easy to slip into their worlds, and they never seem to mind. They like the company, I think,” she suggested.
Morgan shook his head, shaggy hair brushing the tops of his bare shoulders. “It was no wraith. That was a living man.”
***
In his black-stone keep in the far corner of Anraun, Varen rolled away from the sleeping girl beside him and sat up on the edge of the bed. The disquiet he'd experienced all day would not let him rest; it niggled the edges of his mind like a dog worrying a bone. He drew on a black robe, slipped his feet into soft-soled pumps, and with a quick glance to make sure Omell still slept, moved like a shadowed wraith up through the keep to its highest level. Standing outside a heavy metal bound door, he spoke three words. With a ponderous silence, the door swung inwards, then closed again as Varen strode through. The room which he entered was small, low ceiling blackened and stained in parts, floor of smooth, unreflecting metal; the walls, which seemed built at irregular angles, were shelf lined. Each shelf was full, crowded with books, scrolls, jars, bottles and theurgical equipment. A long table was sited in the middle of the room, taking up much of the available space – the rest was given to a tiny forge that burned constantly, yet gave out little heat. It was to this the lord went. He pumped the bellows until the coals blazed white-hot, sprinkled a few drops of water on them and crumbled a small clod of earth over the top.
“By fire, air, earth and water, show me the forces which disturb my keep.”
A small cloud of dense smoke billowed up from the coals and hung in the air above the forge. Dim figures swam within the roiling grayness, blurred and indistinct. The smoke began to thin and whiten. The face of a girl, beautiful and sad, gazed blankly at him, wide gold-starred eyes proclaiming her heritage. Then it was gone, but not before Varen saw the tiny dark crescent moon on one high cheekbone.
“A seer!”
He spat the word onto the coals. They hissed the name back at him and the smoke darkened again, shrinking and coalescing until it formed into a man's head; a handsome man with dark, secret eyes. Unlike the girl, he looked straight at the lord of the keep. The lips moved, forming a name.
Before they finished, Varen swept his hand through the smoke, shredding the image, scattering wisps in the air around him. Reaching for a large jar, he dipped his hand inside, took a pinch of green power and flung it over the coals. The white glow faded yellow then red.
“An Akashiian seer and Morgan bron Sultain!” Varen snarled. “What, by all the demons in Chaos, are they doing? How was he able to see me? And why am I plagued by seers? Their order will be among the first to die. That one and the night-shaper I shall deal with myself,” he vowed.
Chapter 26 – The Orders Realize
Demora stared into the night, oblivious to the people who stood behind her. Since morning, the High Priestess had been at the window, motionless and silent. No expression touched her smooth face, no flicker of acknowledgement reached her eyes at the sound of any voice. When afternoon had drawn to a close, her maids, uneasy and worried, had gone to find the head seer, their mistress's closest friend. Annushi, unable to break the trance Demora had slipped into, then called Casel, Rowena, Tia'mar and Mesar.
The healer prelate had been unsuccessful in her attempt to recall the High Priestess, just as Tia'mar and Mesar were. Casel hadn't even tried, but stood so long beside her younger sister that the others began to fear she, too, had become enthralled. Then the officiate moved away and beckoned the four friends to her.
“Spread your minds,” she said softly as they stood together in a small circle. “Think of the land, and tell me what you find there.”
Seconds passed, gathered into minutes, while they did as Casel urged. Rowena, eyes closed in concentration, was the first to speak. “I sense...an... awakening...? Yes, that's the word. Both in the land and in something else – a person?”
“A person,” Tia'mar agreed, deep voice resonating in the quiet room. “A man; to be even more precise, a High Lord.”
“There's more,” Annushi murmured, her mind continuing to search and probe, ranging further and deeper than those around her, reaching out to take the hands of Tia’mar and Casel on either side of her. “Part of both – land and lord...”
“I feel it,” Mesar stated, linking his hand to Casel’s, uniting their powers. “The magnet which drew me here; that is your lost seer, Annushi.”
“No...” Tia'mar breathed. “By our lady, not now...! Morgan is claiming his land-right! No other female can be involved...”
“But the Starstone shard led her there!” Demora said suddenly, turning from the window. “It took her from the Temple to the mountain. Now she's bound to Morgan and the land. Oh, goddess,” the High Priestess groaned. “Now what has she done?”
“What do you mean?” Rowena asked, puzzled by the note of anguish in Demora's voice. The loose circle they had formed lost shape as the friends opened their eyes, released hands and moved apart.
“The Land Power is a male inheritance, only passed from one High Lord to the other. Ulric never had any use for his birth-right, but it seems Morgan has to. So Liath was used as the catalyst. Why, how, I have no idea. All I know is what she’s doing now is impossible. She’s with him, guiding him through his rite of passage,” Demora announced, verbalizing the feelings they had picked up,
“As if we hadn't enough to contend with in the dreams and darkness,” Casel sighed, going to the nearest seat, a worried line between her eyebrows. She didn’t need to be a seer to know what they were going to have to deal with soon. She sat, smoothed her black trimmed beige robe and waited to hear what the others had found.
“You could be right,” Tia'mar agreed. “I only wish we'd been a little more circumspect in guarding that shard.”
“What's its real history, Magus, do you know?” Rowena asked, settling her tall, lean frame comfortably in the corner of one sofa and crossing one long, dark-blue trousered leg. “Not the legends, or rumors – but the true facts.”
“Without research down in the oldest magi archives, all I can say is that it's a few millennia old, from a time in our early civilization when wild magics flowed through the land, when kingdoms were won and lost by the thrust of a sword, before the Goddess walked the earth and the Temple was founded. As old as the first prime, the first lord ever to unite the many kingdoms of Anraun under one rule. I believe it was the Starstone shard which drew the essence of the Goddess into itself – or,” he added with a rueful smile, “the essence of the shard which became the Goddess, became Our Lady Delga. That it was she who gave birth to the first high priestess – or possibly just chose her personally.” Another half-smile curved Tia’mar’s lips at the options he’d given them before he became somber again. “Anyway, the shard is the link to the High Lord, the land power and the Goddess, and I think the last two are the same thing, or very similar – which is why there can never be a female involved in the passing on of the land rite!”
He paused and thought a moment, “Then it was fractured, divided into seven and used for another purpose, I...” The magus frowned, shook his head a little as if to rid it of a troublesome thought, “or was it the other way around… I can’t recall. Anyway, the shards were...used...then...scattered between worlds...we retained the third ray of the star, our shard...” he frowned again, trying to remember a vague instruction. “All I remember is its primary use was in the link between land, lady and lord. And it held those properties within it until the next High Lord was named, and so on. I seem to recall it has a use as a weapon, too. Although how and what, is anyone's guess. In due course, it came to the Temple for us to guard and has remained hidden and forgotten until now. In theory, I suppose, it contains the might of Thesa, Delgannan and all of Anraun,” he paused for the weight of his words to settle over the room, then glanced at Demora. “In practice it...it what – transported Liath and itself to the Delga mountain?”
“Yes. As far as I can tell, it's stayed there, deep inside the rock. Strange, I've never been aware of it until this morning, well after it had gone, yet it feels like days since I first sensed it, weeks, in fact. I wonder if it has a distorting effect on time?” she mused. “Morgan's learning is almost over. He and Liath will be coming down from the mountain soon. Did you see this, Annushi? Did you 'see a golden-skinned woman in his futures – a strange, beautiful woman who looks remarkably like Liath?” the High Priestess demanded.
“I saw the creature you have described – but she is not a human female – Morgan created her in Liath's image.”
“Created... but why didn't you say so!”
“Would you?” Annushi retorted, eyes flashing. “Could you have told him that? All I could see was that face in the shadows Liath cast, and then briefly. I thought it was a distorted vision of her. In retrospect...” she shrugged. “Could you sense how she felt, Demora – is she alright?” the seer then asked anxiously, leaning forward in her seat.
The chestnut haired woman considered the question, considered the sadness and loneliness she'd experienced during the hours, or days, she'd stood at the window entranced. Considered the love and sharing, the showing and bonding, the emotional pain and – yes, jealousy she’d ‘observed’ between land and man, Morgan and Liath. What had come to Demora was a racial memory, written into her genes by Anraun’s living Supreme Being. Through the unbroken line back to the first High Priestess, she was able to perceive these things – just as each one of the women had been aware, observing the transference of power from lord to lord.
The Land, as personified by the Goddess, is female, but real – not as we take Her part in ritual – the High Priestess thought, dredged up her knowledge of the subject, joined that with what she could sense through the Stone shard. Through the Goddess, every High Priestess was the Land – that was the original basis for the rites and solstice celebrations. Liath was her niece and of that line, probably the reason she was still alive. Nonetheless, she was a rogue, a wild card, an Akashiian, unprepared for the sharing and guiding.
Instinct, inherent and inherited, from her female ancestors, gave Demora this knowledge, since no written records existed of the links between stone, priestess and lord. Not even in the bards ancient and extensive tales and songs was this mentioned, only passed down by personal experience. Until that era when both lords and priestesses had forsaken their parts in the bonding and the magi had taken place as guardians of the land – almost a millennia ago.
Realization of that passage of time shocked her. Goddess, she thought, how complaisant we've become. She thought of the smooth sail through the centuries since the virtual genocide of the Akashii, and even to this day, there was a shamefulness surrounding that terrible time; the reason why Moiror had abdicated in favor of Demora after Alaneah had died, why she could never bring herself to like the fey Akashii her son called 'wife'. Guilt, from an event all those years passed that hadn’t even originated on our own world.
So concerned was the High Priestess of the events surrounding Anraun and those she loved, she ignored, or simply didn’t recall, what the Starstone had originally been created for in ages gone by.
“Demora...Demora!”
Annushi's voice broke into her wandering thoughts, abruptly dragging her back to the present.
“Liath's been...” the woman hesitated, weighed up the consequence of lying to her friend and colleague, “greatly affected by this. She's sad, lonely and more than a little afraid of what's happening. The land loves Morgan; he's tied so deeply to it now. But it also loves her...as...as a daughter...” the High Priestess' voice changed, took on a different rhythm and timbre as though many women were speaking through and with her. “When the shard took her from here to Delga, she lay near death in the heart of the mountain, the penalty for having touched the shard, even though it called her. While the land healed her body, she was taught of the right, lore and power. Never before has any female, save the Goddess, truly known this. Not even the first one of us was aware of so much; not even in our most sacred Rite do we experience a fraction of such knowledge. Only one male in all of Anraun is permitted this, once each generation.” Demora blinked and looked rather surprised at what she’d said, then rested a hand on her throat, clearing it before continuing, “If she and Morgan ever truly fight, they'll tear Anraun apart, stone by stone.”
She sighed, deeply, unhappily. “There we have it – so many laws broken – so much altered.”
In the private chamber, austere and uncluttered save for the seats, table and tiny shrine, there was a profound stillness while each person digested what they had learned, tried to make sense of it, tried to reason how it would affect them and the futures.
It was Mesar who finally broke that weighty silence, and what he said seemed at first to have little bearing on what had gone before. “We have been able to find a way of slowing the approach of the exiled world, Danaach. But we cannot stop or banish it. Jarath, the Doman of Saybel, is content to wait awhile and let us handle this; I suspect even he has little idea of what to do. Once its journey through the dimensions is complete and it aligns with us, we have to fight. Can Morgan and Liath raise up the land against the invaders? I
s it possible for them to harness that power and send this world back, close the way once and for all?” He stopped, surprised to notice his sister grow pale. “What is it, Annushi?”
“It's not just the Land-power they'd have to control and direct, but all the magi's energies woven within it for all these years!” she said with something akin to horror. “Such a force would kill them both! Flesh and blood could not channel so great a melding of powers. They would be annihilated. And with nothing to hold it in check, all that raw energy would... Well, I'm not sure what it would do, but the effect would be devastating. None of my seers can 'see past the dark world's arrival. Perhaps it's not simply the invaders who are causing that, perhaps it's the use of the Land-power, and the destruction of our own world through it!”
Again, silence so dense it muffled hearing hit the room as its occupants, trained to think first rather than react, digested the seer’s devastating summation.
Eventually, Tia'mar spoke. “I think some of us had best travel to Delgannan.”
“You're right,” Demora agreed forcing herself to concentrate on the here and now, and put all the Starstone’s uses to the back of her mind. “I'll send a message at first light and have our swiftest ship made ready.”
“I think you ought to let both Morgan and Liath have a little time together first. Let them adjust to each other and their new strengths, despite all we’ve learned here,” Casel stated. “There will come a time in the not too distant future when they have to work in complete harmony; grant them a few days grace before you go charging in crying doom.”
“I agree,” Rowena added. “Besides, Druin is there, and Balin; they should be able to restrain and advise if things begin to get out of hand.”
“How long before you estimate that world will be in phase with us, Tia'mar?” Demora asked.
“I’d say two or three weeks; a month at the latest.”
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