by Tora Moon
“I have a feeling I know.” Rizelya helped Chariel sit up. “I think my dreams are a clue. Maybe the Supreme knows who this woman is who plagues me.”
“The one I remind you of?” Chariel said. “I told you, you are important.” She closed her eyes and held her head in her hands. “Hmmm, this is unusual. I rarely remember my visions, but this one remains fairly clear. I saw you, Rizelya, which makes sense, you triggered it. Oh, Blazel was there.” She looked up at Rizelya and grinned. “He’s going to love you. There was one of the Haaslair horse men, and”—she tilted her head—“what, who else … oh damn.”
“What?” Rizelya and Wisah asked at the same time.
Chariel moaned again, then turned bleak eyes to Wisah. “We’re the White and Gray who go with them.”
“But you’ve never left the confines of the Sanctuary,” Wisah said, concern filling her voice.
“I know.” Chariel’s eyes were wide.
“Any idea who the lost allies are?” Wisah prompted.
“Ah, yes. The Phengriffs. You remember Blazel telling us about them? We need their flying abilities. Something is in the air that we can’t fight, but they can.”
“Phengriffs?” Rizelya asked. “Aren’t they just mythical creatures? Who are they supposed to fight?”
“I don’t know,” Chariel snapped. “I see bits and pieces, just enough to get things moving. Or scare myself. The Goddess never shows me all of it because we have choice to do as we will. Our actions and choices change the future.”
“But there isn’t anything that we need the flying capabilities of the Phengriffs to fight.”
“Not yet. My vision says there will be, soon. It warns none of us will survive the coming danger if the Phengriffs don’t help us.”
“And Blazel is the only one who can negotiate with them,” Wisah said. “Now we know why you sent him to the Deep Mountains. I could even see it then. But why, for the love of the Mother, did you send him to the southern swamps?”
Chariel shrugged. “My vision said he had to go there. Again, our survival depends on it.”
“Do you think he’ll get back in time to help us now?” Wisah looked skeptical.
Chariel walked to the window and looked down. When she turned back to them, she wore a smug smile. “Yes, I do. He’s coming up the road now.”
A bell chimed. “Oh, damn,” Wisah swore. “Rizelya, I came up here to get you for your appointment with the Supreme. Hurry and get dressed; we have just a few milcrons.”
Rizelya threw on fresh clothes, splashed water at her face, and quickly cleaned her teeth. She grabbed a brush and tugged it through her hair. As they hurried down the stairs and through the halls, she wove her hair into a braid. She wasn’t paying much attention to where they were going until she heard the clatter of horses on the cobblestones. Wisah had taken them to the entrance courtyard.
“Isn’t the Temple and the Supreme back there?” Rizelya asked, turning back toward the door.
“Blazel is here,” Wisah said with a grin, continuing to walk along the back wall of the courtyard. “I had to see him first.”
Across the courtyard a wild-looking man dressed in startling red leathers was laughing with one of the stable women. He wore his dark auburn hair in long tangled ropes. When he turned his head, Rizelya gasped at the long scar running from his right cheekbone, across his chin and neck, and disappearing into his shirt. Other than the scar, he was quite handsome. Their eyes met and Rizelya felt a shock go through her. She remembered Chariel’s words, “Blazel’s going to love you.” She had thought it was a sarcastic comment, but now she wondered.
Blazel waved at Wisah as they crossed the courtyard. The horses moved, and Rizelya and Wisah saw he wasn’t alone. They gaped at the strange sight of Blazel’s companion. Most Posair men only shifted into wolves, but the men of the plains were as comfortable as a horse as they were a wolf. They all had heard the stories of the few Haaslair men who shifted into half man, half horse. Once they did, they could never shift back to man or horse. They lived the rest of their lives in the half-shape. The man with Blazel was one of these centaurs.
Rizelya was reminded of Chariel’s prophecy. “Horse and hawk” must mean the centaur and a Phengriff. She assumed the ‘fire’ was her and the warrior was Aistrun. The rogue could only be the wild Blazel. She tipped her head back to see the tall peaks of the mountains around her. She shivered. No one, except apparently Blazel, had ever gone to the Deep Mountains and returned.
The centaur saw them gaping and smiled, making his face open and friendly.
“We don’t have time to go greet them,” Wisah sighed. “But I can’t wait to meet Blazel’s friend. I’ve never met a centaur before, have you?”
“No.” It wasn’t the centaur Rizelya wanted to meet, but the man with him.
***
Wisah led Rizelya through another door in the back wall of the courtyard and they hurried through well-groomed gardens. The garden pathways led to the largest Temple Rizelya had ever seen.
The Sanctuary was home of the Goddess and Her Consort, and the Temple reflected this. Inside the public chamber, three sides of the walls were filled with familiar murals and statues depicting the Goddess’s four faces. Rizelya turned curiously to face the fourth wall. Images of the Consort filled it, from a small boy, experiencing the joy of shifting to his wolf form for the first time, to a venerable sage with a long beard, wrinkled face, and kind wise eyes. Rizelya was surprised by the black pelt of the Consort in his warrior form. This painting showed the Consort as a Black Talent, rare even for women and unheard of in men.
Wisah didn’t allow her to linger in front of the painting. She walked past it as if it weren’t unusual and went through a door in the back.
The corridor was richly painted, murals of The Goddess and Her Consort filling the walls. Wisah hurried through the hallway, not giving Rizelya a chance to get more than an impression of the stunning murals. They stopped finally at a huge black ironwood double door. On it were painted the symbols of the seven Talents in a circle, beginning at the top with the Whites, Grays, Reds, Yellows, Greens, Blues, and ending with the Browns. The black background was the symbol for the eighth Talent, Black: one who could work all of the other seven magics. The cycle of the three moons—Kelar, Zelar, and Chelar—was depicted on the lintel above the door. Two woman, each holding a helbraught, their faces veiled and wearing red leather, stood guard on either side of the door. At Rizelya and Wisah’s approach, the one on the right opened the door.
Rizelya felt a tingling along her skin as she passed through the threshold. A spell guarded the entrance just as surely as the two women outside the door did. White sheadash and marble formed the floors and walls of the audience chamber, which could fit several hundred people. White curtains hung on the windows and white pillar candles lit the room. The only color in the room was Rizelya’s auburn hair, red leathers, and boots. Her heels striking the floor sounded loud in the quiet room.
Before Rizelya dropped her gaze to the floor, she glimpsed a dais across the room where a woman sat in a throne carved from one massive piece of clear crystal. The woman was dressed in a dazzling white silk gown that covered her feet and a white veil covered her hair. She had white hair and white eyes. Only one child on the continent was born with white eyes: the one destined to become the Supreme White Priestess. And she was born when the current Supreme was near the end of her life.
Ten paces in front of the throne, Wisah gestured Rizelya to stop. Together they made the gesture of obeisance and honor to the representative of the Goddess and dropped to their knees. Rizelya trembled slightly at being this close to the Supreme.
“You may rise,” the Supreme said after several long microns.
Rizelya stood up and raised her head slowly. In the center of the Supreme’s chest hung the symbol of her office, an eight-pointed star. The large diamond in the center of it caught the light in the room and tossed it at Rizelya. She blinked away the dazzle and found the courage to look
at the Supreme’s face. She was an old, old woman.
“Supreme,” Wisah said, again bowing her head, “this is my Aunt Rizelya. Ever since coming into contact with the first strange janack, she has had strange dreams. It is believed they are important and she is here for you to interpret them.”
The Supreme drummed her fingers on the arm of her throne. Her nails clicked on the crystal, creating a soft chime. Instead of eight rings circling her fingers like the High Priestesses, she wore ten rings. The rings on her thumbs were for the Goddess and Consort.
“So I have heard. Come closer, child.” Her fingers stopped drumming and beckoned to Rizelya.
All her life she had been taught to respect and follow the guidance from the White Priestesses. This was an order she could not disobey. She moved forward, stopping at the steps leading to the dais.
“Closer,” the Supreme urged. She stopped Rizelya when she was within touching distance.
“Kneel.” The Supreme put cool fingers on Rizelya’s face, her fingertips touching the meridian points. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Rizelya closed her eyes and went through the mental exercise to relax her muscles.
“Good. Now start with the first instance you sensed the woman and recall in detail what you saw or sensed. Then move forward, remembering every instance, every dream.”
The Supreme’s voice was calm and soothing, and gently put Rizelya into a trance. The images and malevolent feelings rushed through her mind. It seemed like it took days, and yet no time at all, for all the dreams to be wrung from her mind. The Supreme removed her fingers and Rizelya slid to the cool stone floor, shaking. The shadows on the walls indicated it had taken a couple of octars for Rizelya to recount her dreams.
Wisah’s gentle strokes and voice stopped the trembling in Rizelya’s body. She placed a cup next to Rizelya’s lips, the cool water revived her. Rizelya sat up to see the Supreme leaning back in her throne; her eyes were closed and she looked haggard.
Wisah helped Rizelya to her feet and together they moved a few steps away from the Supreme. Rizelya took a deep breath and said, “I can’t shake the feeling there is someone, some intelligence, behind the monsters, especially the control janack. Whoever it is hates us, all Posairs, and is very angry, blaming us for some horrible wrong against them.” She stopped as a sudden insight hit her, then said, “They want to kill us all, obliterate our entire race. Do you, Supreme, know who they are and why they would hate us so?”
After a long time, the Supreme opened her eyes. There was fear and anger in them.
“So, our old enemies are not dead.”
“Supreme, do you know who the woman is?” Rizelya asked hesitantly.
The Supreme made a face. “I do. She is a Malvers.”
Rizelya looked at Wisah and saw the same confusion she felt reflected in Wisah’s face.
“Malvers are the people we fought in the Great War,” the Supreme continued, her voice low. “We won, just barely. Shandir’s great magical achievement defeated the Malvers and created the crater. We exiled all the survivors, hoping they would die and leave us in peace. My predecessors thought it would be better for our people if they forgot about the Malvers and their nasty blood magic, and so they stripped the memory of them from the records. The monsters you fight, Rizelya, are their creation. It was believed when no new monsters—other than their original creations, the janack and brecha—attacked us the Malvers had lost their magic. Some of the past Supremes even proclaimed them dead, wishful thinking it turns out.”
The drumming fingers started again on the throne; this time it sounded like a battle call. “Now we have proof they still live and are gaining in strength. Goddess help us if they return to the continent.”
Rizelya felt a wash of fear. If the Supreme was afraid of these Malvers, what hope did the rest of them have?
“Chariel had a vision just before we came here,” Wisah said. “She saw flying creatures and the Phengriffs fighting them.” Wisah proceeded to tell the Supreme what Chariel had said in her prophecy.
The Supreme looked sharply at Wisah. “Phengriffs? Blazel?”
Wisah nodded. “He just arrived at the Sanctuary, your grace.”
“The Goddess provides in strange ways,” the Supreme said.
Epilogue
The Supreme White Priestess watched the young Red, Rizelya, leave the audience chamber. She was sure Rizelya wasn’t having dreams; somehow she was linked with the Malvers woman. Extraordinarily, it seemed like the girl was developing Gray Talents. It was almost as unheard of as a Red having the water Talents of a Blue. The fiery, passionate, warrior personality of a Red was opposite to the gentle mind-healers that were Grays.
“Malvers!” she whispered to the empty room. “We should have killed them then, not exiled them.”
The Supreme walked slowly back to her quarters, waving away her assistants. In the rooms that had housed the Supremes for ages was a hidden alcove. Inside was a panel with ancient symbols carved into its surface. Lifting her heavy necklace over her head, she turned it around so the diamond faced the wall, and pressed her token of office into the corresponding eight-pointed star. The diamond flared with bright white light and the Supreme turned the key in a set sequence. The panel unlocked.
She reached into the panel and pulled out a gold and silver coffer. The lock on it also required the key of her necklace. She took a deep breath before lifting the lid. The coffer had been handed down from Supreme to Supreme since the end of the Great War. Inside were the histories of the Malvers. Although everything relating to the Malvers had been erased from history and the minds of the populace, the Supremes’ job was to remember—remember all of the atrocities committed by their enemy, all of their secrets, and who they once were.
The Supreme shuddered, recalling the reason for the war. The Malvers practiced a malignant form of magic, creating only things that devoured and destroyed. This was anathema to the Posairs, who used their magic to improve life. The Posairs had hated what the Malvers were doing and used their magic to stop the creatures, but even that hadn’t caused the Great War. It was discovered the Malvers went even further against the ways of the Goddess.
They used forbidden blood magic.
They must not be allowed to return to the continent to practice their evil once more. And one was trying to do just that through young Rizelya. The Supreme recalled the image of the Malvers woman haunting Rizelya—she seemed familiar—and said a quick prayer of gratitude to the Goddess that Rizelya was strong willed and had resisted the call of the Malvers.
During her training to become the leader of the Posairs, the Supreme had studied in depth the contents of the coffer. She delved into it now, retrieving ancient portraits preserved with magic over the centuries. She flipped through the pictures of all the exiled Malvers and stopped when she saw a familiar face. How could it be the same one? How has she managed to survive all these centuries?
The Supreme gripped the edge of the coffer so tight her rings dug into fingers. She reached out with her mind, as her predecessor had taught her so many years ago, and touched the magical barrier. She gasped. It was failing. The last time she checked it, at the turn of the year, it had still been strong. How did it weaken so fast? She struggled to repair the damage until her strength ran out but she knew her repairs weren’t enough. It would give her people a few lunadar, at most a year, to prepare for the invasion surely to come.
As she came back to herself, she recalled Chariel’s prophecy. She’d send the young people on their quest to find the Phengriffs. Perhaps there was yet hope for her people’s survival.
And this time, the Supreme vowed, the Malvers would be destroyed.
Appendix
THE CAST
Aistrun – (Aye-strun) co-Alpha with Rizelya; Strunlair Keep; Rizelya's squad-pack
Beladi - (Bell-ah-de) - Double Red with Yellow; Clan-pack Alpha of Strunlair Keep
Bestrun - (Bae-strun) male Keep Alpha of Strunell Keep.
; Brachen (Bray-chen) - Brown - head healer; Strunhemde Keep
Bren - a healer - Red with Green and some yellow; Strunell Keep
Chariel (Char-ee-el) — Charcoal Gray; The Sanctuary
Dehali - (Dee-haa-lee) - Red and Yellow; Strunland Keep; Rizelya's squad-pack
Drustrun – (Drew-strun) from Strunell Keep, male Alpha partner with Shaydan
Eiden (Eye-den) – Yellow, twin to Eidstrun; Strunland Keep
Eidstrun - (Eyed-strun) male, twin to Eiden; Strunland Keep; Rizelya's squad-pack
Gehan (Gay-han) - Yellow and Green; Strunven Keep
Grazeen (Gray-zeen) - Green and Brown; Strunven Keep
Histrun – (His-strun) former Strunlair Clan-pack Alpha; Strunland Keep, Rizelya's father
Kaieli (Kai-ee-le) – Brown; Strunland Keep; heart sister to Rizelya
Kami and Tami - Yellow, identical twins; Strunell Keep
Keandran - (Kae-an-dran) male; Strunlair Keep; Rizelya's squad-pack
Kelstrun - (Kel-strun) the male Alpha of the Strunland Keep
Keshanal - (Khe-shan-al) - Keep Alpha of Strunell Keep
Laenstrun - (Lay-en-strun) Laynar’s twin brother and Alpha partner; Strunheim Keep
Layhalya (Lay-hall-yah) – Keep Alpha of Strunheim Keep
Laynad (Lay-nad) - Red; Alpha of a Strunhamde, a major keep in Strunheim Territory. Older sister to Laynar and Laynal
Laynal (Lay-nal) - Red and Yellow; Strunheim Keep, younger sister of Laynar
Laynar (Lay-nar) - Red; Strunheim Keep, granddaughter of Layhalya
Ledelstrun - (Lay-del-strun) tracker; Strunhemde Keep
Lehaas - (Lay-haas) horse master; Strunell Keep
Leistral - (Lay-ee-straal) Red with Green; Strunland Keep; Rizelya's squad-pack
Leistrun – (Lay-is-strun) a young warrior; Strunland Keep
Maellyn (May-lyn) - Brown with Red; Strunven Keep
Maendy (May-end-ee) - Brown, a helstramiester; Strunven Keep