The World Weavers

by Kelley Grant

  “Then why don’t humans kill themselves to get that completion?” Sulis asked.

  We must be worthy of union, Clay said. We must create a better world for those around us and better ourselves. If we do not, the One then sends us back to another circle of life. Through life, we learn compassion, love, and generosity. There is much to be learned in this physical world.

  “Are you worthy?” Ava wanted to know. “Will you go to the One or be sent back? How do you know if you are?”

  Most don’t know, Clay said. But I have communed with the One and I know. He waits for me. So close. I long so much for reunion with my beloved, the One, and he is so close.

  “You want to leave me!” Ava cried, turning and placing her hands on the statue. “I can’t do this without you!”

  But I will be with the One, Clay said. And the One is always with you. The energy that is within me is the One’s and it is the same energy that is in you.

  “The One won’t find me worthy,” Ava said. “She won’t want me and I’ll never join you.”

  The One has already found you worthy—­he chose you to make him whole. What could be a greater task? The One has recognized that splitting himself into the deities was a mistake and created dissonance instead of harmony. The union of deities with the One is a monumental undertaking that will bring lasting wholeness to all. You, Ava, were judged worthy and were called to this task. The One will welcome you when your time on earth has passed.

  Ava was silent for some time, her chin on her knees, which were drawn up to her chest. Sulis didn’t blame her—­Clay had given them both much to think about. As the dusk deepened to night, she stirred.

  “I’m keeping you from bliss, aren’t I?” Ava said. Clay was silent. Ava looked over at Sulis. “It is selfish of me. But I’m afraid without him. Clay made me feel whole, undamaged. Who will do that if he goes away?”

  Trust in the One as you always have me. I will be in the One’s energy.

  Ava nodded and stood, putting her hand on the statue. She was crying, but determined. Sulis stood as well. She sent out a mental call to the other Chosen, a summons for them to come to the temple.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Ava told Clay.

  You must connect my energy to the One’s, Clay said. The One will draw me out of this trap.

  “So I should draw a line of energy from you to the Altar of the One?” Ava asked. “Why do we have to do all those crazy dances with the deities if it’s that simple?”

  They have forgotten they were once a part of the One, Clay said. They are afraid, and do not wish to be reunited. We hold them and weave their energy with the One until they realize that union is what they truly long for.

  Ava startled and turned as the door to the temple opened and the crowd of Chosen and Guardians rushed in, most in night robes. Even Sari trailed in their wake, alarmed by their rush to the temple. Sulis thought in chagrin that maybe her sending shouldn’t have been so urgent.

  “They have the right to say goodbye,” Sulis told Ava. Sulis turned to the group. “Ava is ready to help Clay reunite with the One. I thought he might wish to say goodbye before leaving us, and each of you might want to speak with him.”

  Relief and understanding shone on most faces. Sari stepped up.

  “Thank you, yes,” she said. “I would like to speak once more with my old friend.”

  The crowd was solemn as they waited their turn. Sari left after she’d spoken with Clay, a sad smile on her face, but most lingered. Grandmother and Palou both spoke to Clay at once, and Palou laughed and glanced over at Grandmother, eyes shining. Even Alannah spoke with him, stepping back to Sulis after, smiling.

  “Oh, how I envy him,” Alannah whispered at Sulis’s inquiring gaze. “The glory that he will know.” She shook her head and looked down.

  Sulis went next to last. She had no words—­only sent a burst of emotion to Clay about how much he meant to her and how much she was going to miss him. He sent a burst of energy, of love and joy and celebration. She couldn’t help but laugh at his giddiness.

  Ava was last. She stood still for a long time, eyes closed, nodding or shaking her head to things Clay said. Then she turned away, her face dry of tears. Ava gathered her energy, and then pricked her finger with her dagger. She touched Clay, and connected a line to him. She did not drag her hand on the ground this time—­instead she drew an invisible line of energy to the Altar of the One. She touched her bloody palm to the orb, then walked to the group of Chosen and stood with them as Dani put his arms around her.

  The line between Clay and the One flared, became visible as Clay reached for the One. The orb shone bright for only a moment, and then there was a flash of light. A burst of intense joy washed over them, and then all was silent again, the orb glowing faintly.

  “Did you feel that?” Ava asked. “That was him, wasn’t it? He was so happy.” She turned away and cried into Dani’s chest.

  “I think we can rest tomorrow,” Amon said heavily. His face had been drawn since he took his turn speaking with Clay. “It will be a day of mourning.”

  “It will be a day of celebration,” Grandmother corrected. Ava raised her head and looked at Grandmother, who smiled and tapped her on the cheek. “Clay is with the One. We will celebrate that, even as we miss his physical presence among us. Thank you for giving him joy, dear one.”

  Ava nodded, not smiling but seeming wearily content. “I will never forget him,” she said.

  “But you will be happy,” Sulis reminded her. “It is what he wanted.”

  “I will be happy again,” Ava promised.

  When they met again in two days to empty the final two statues, Amon had different orders for them.

  “Ava will draw her mandala only with energy,” Amon said. “Sulis has been dancing with her eyes closed, so she does not need to physically chalk the lines. When we set the final mandala, the actual trap for the deities, we don’t want the deities to see the lines connecting the statues together and realize it is a trap.”

  “But they’ll see the energy lines if we create the mandala before they are trapped in the statues, whether we chalk them or not,” Master Anchee protested. “They exist in the ether, where that energy is.”

  Amon shook his head. “I have a masking spell. It will look like a misty fog inside the mandala to the deities.”

  “Wait, so Ava has to create the mandala before the deities are trapped?” Sulis asked. “I thought they would get stuck in the statues, and then we would create the mandala and dance them to the One. For that matter, I don’t understand why we have to do all of them at once. They’ll be so much more powerful in person than the echo of them we emptied out of the statues—­we should do them singly to make sure we can.”

  Alannah answered, “Just having the empty statues won’t call the deities strongly enough. Ava will use the mandala to connect each statue with the element the deity is affiliated with—­Voras to fire, Ivanha to earth, Parasu to water, Aryn to wind. That should make the trap stronger and irresistible to each deity, drawing them out of their Voices’ bodies.”

  “As for why all at once,” Amon said, “the final spells are ones of destruction—­destroying the shells so the deities are reabsorbed. All have to be destroyed with one spell. When the last of the deities’ energy is pulled into the One, the Altar of the One will be destroyed.”

  Lasha looked between him and Alannah. “Who will recite the destruction spells?” she asked.

  “Alannah will recite the words of power to draw the deities to the One, and then I will speak the destructive spells,” Amon said.

  Ava was staring at Parasu’s cordoned-­off statue, looking lost. Dani put an arm around her and whispered something and she smiled up at him.

  “Dani does well with her now,” Lasha murmured to Sulis.

  Sulis nodded and watched as Sanuri took Ava’s hand and led her t
o the center of the circle, by the Altar of the One. The girls sat beside the altar, holding hands and connecting energetically. The statue of Ivanha and the statue of Voras were at opposite ends, so the altar would be in the center of whatever mandala Ava created with the energy lines. It would be a very long oblong, danced between two statues of Parasu and Aryn that were cordoned off because they were traps. Sulis shivered, and Grandmother looked over at her.

  “It scares me a little, dancing between the trapped statues,” Sulis told her. “How are you going to weave your way among them?”

  “I won’t. I’ll dance around the whole circle, as I would if we were doing all four.” Grandmother gestured to the circle. “I’m worried about you and Anchee. Be careful, my girl. I don’t want to send you on with Clay.”

  “I will,” Sulis promised as Ava stood and circled the altar.

  Sulis could feel the colors of energy being drawn. Red earth energy as well as green heart energy for Ivanha. Yellow power energy, mingled with orange and red for Voras. Sulis found it interesting that the chakras were all the lower ones—­all very close to humanity and far away from the energy of spirituality, intuition, and mind arts. She wondered if that was why Ivanha and Voras rejected the One so strongly—­they were very much tied to humanity and the earth. As Ava drew, both were tied together in as intricate a mandala as Sulis had ever danced.

  Master Anchee came up beside her and they talked through the poses of the mandala while it was being drawn with Ava’s energy.

  “Lasha and I will be on alert,” Ashraf told Sulis. “If it looks like one of you is about to get too close to the empty statues, we will intervene.”

  Sulis was startled. “I don’t think you should break the mandala once we are dancing it,” she said.

  Amon piped up. “They should. There could be a slight backlash of energy, but you are more important than completing the dance. We can always try again another day. But if we lose one of you, the battle is already lost. Clay knew that, which is why he sacrificed himself.”

  Sulis eyed Ashraf. “Don’t you sacrifice yourself,” she muttered to him. “Amon may think you’re expendable, but I can’t continue without you.”

  Ashraf simply looked at her, not saying anything. Sulis knew he’d sacrifice himself in an instant for her, as she would for him. She would be very careful while dancing.

  Sulis was a bundle of nerves as she stepped over the energy lines, trying not to blur them. Anchee made them do a calming ritual, and then it was time to dance. Sulis danced more slowly this time, which taxed her energy, but was more precise. She thought the dance would seem endless, because twice as many energy lines needed to be filled, but soon she was prostrated by Ivanha’s statue, panting and sweating as though she’d run a race.

  She could feel the energy around her, and it resisted being woven in a way Aryn’s and Parasu’s had not. Grandmother danced, smoothing the energy to feed to Sanuri, who knotted and reknitted it as it resisted being woven. There was a pulling, a tearing apart when Alannah spoke the words of power. But both Ivanha’s and Voras’s energies were finally pulled into the Altar of the One, reabsorbed by the One.

  Sulis sat still, uncertain she could get up and terrified she’d fall into Ivanha’s statue and be sucked in. She could feel it calling to her and wanted to reach out.

  Djinn blocked her reach and flopped down on her lap with a sigh. She sank her hands into his fur and buried her head in his ruff, absorbing energy from him. Ashraf’s hands on her shoulders sent her even more energy and he massaged her stiff neck until she was revived enough to stand. Master Anchee received a similar treatment with Lasha’s Alta on his lap.

  Alannah and Palou bent over Grandmother, who had her head between her knees, her skin ashen. Sulis stumbled forward in alarm.

  “She will be fine,” Alannah said quietly. “This was a very difficult weaving.”

  “But next time we will have the full powers of the deities fighting us, and all four at once,” Sulis said.

  Grandmother lifted her head. “I must practice more, then. I have not had to move so much energy since I was young. I will need to find more sources to draw on besides poor Palou.”

  Sulis glanced sharply at Palou, who looked as exhausted as Grandmother. Age was making them wearier, she realized. Palou didn’t have the resilience the other Guardians did. Master Anchee was of age with them, but Lasha was much younger than her Chosen.

  “I wonder if we Shuttles can share energy,” Sulis mused. “Once Master Anchee and I are finished, we might be able to send you energy from our Guardians and feli to help you complete your dance.”

  Grandmother nodded, considering the idea.

  Amon spoke from beside Sulis. “This is why we needed to do both vessels at once. Having four deities, with full power, will stretch us to the limits of our strength. The time until the war comes to us must be spent practicing.”

  Ava nodded. “I will need to draw the final mandala with energy and ground it in the stone,” she said. “I have to create something for each deity, and Sanuri will be able to tell me if it is enough to trap them. And then I’ll need to weave it all together in the center, with the One. I hope I can do it. It’s really complicated.”

  “The One will guide us,” Alannah said quietly. “She longs for completion.”

  Jonas waited beside his horse for the other Voices to arrive, the Magistrate fidgeting beside him, fussing with saddlebags. Jonas wasn’t fond of horses, so he was staying off his as long as possible awaiting the rest of their party. He gazed at the Temple, wondering if he would ever see it and Illian again.

  They were riding off to war. Jonas was a scholar, a man of laws and books, and preferred the cool indoors of stone corridors to being outside in the dust and heat. He was not a great rider, not a great swordsman.

  You will have protectors riding with you, Parasu said. They are swordsmen. Your skills are far more valuable than those of a sword-­for-­hire.

  Jonas wished that comforted him as the Herald and her Ranger rode up, looking as at home on their mounts as they did striding around the courtyard. They had bows slung on their backs and slender swords hung across the pommels of their saddles.

  Jonas climbed awkwardly onto his mount, blessing the stableman for picking a placid older beast. He hadn’t been near a horse in over a year, since his lessons as an acolyte ended and he’d been assigned to Illian. He knew he sat like a sack on the animal’s back, but he’d never felt graceful in the saddle.

  “Sit a little farther forward,” the Ranger advised quietly, seeing Jonas’s discomfort. “Tilt your tailbone up more so your body doesn’t slouch. Those stirrups are a little long.”

  Jonas gratefully smiled at the aide who adjusted his stirrups. He was sitting more naturally, feeling more comfortable when the Templar and his Knight galloped up, dramatically pulling their big-­boned horses to a sliding stop. The Crone rode in after him, on a dainty mare that stamped restlessly when reined in. Her Mother Superior rode a calmer horse, similar to Jonas’s, and looked as uncomfortable as he felt.

  “Are we ready?” the Crone asked.

  Jonas looked around. It was a large crowd. The Herald and Aryn supplied the largest party, with close to a hundred healers riding out to boost those already stationed with the army. Besides the healers, each Voice, and his or her second, each party had five to ten men at arms guarding them. Feli wove between the mounts and hissed at each other restlessly, following their acolytes to war. In the center of this chaos were three dark faces—­Southern caravan leaders who had been forced into the ser­vice of Voras. Jonas didn’t ask if they’d been geased or if Voras had broken their minds somehow. They stared dully off into the distance, guarded by the soldiers the Templar was bringing. They would lead the army to the western desert town of Shpeth, which the army would conquer to find guides for the journey into the Sands.

  “I have left five hundred men in t
he city at the viceroy’s request, to protect it against the Descendants,” the Templar said. “They say they are friends, but I don’t fully trust them. We will head south, camp this evening and reach the outpost where the army has been stationed the next day.” He glanced over at Jonas. “We also have wagons loaded with supplies and medicines. Anyone who tires of being on horseback can ride in the wagons.”

  Jonas inclined his head graciously, seething that the Templar would single him out.

  He does not matter, Parasu consoled Jonas. He is nothing compared to you. A flawed vessel for his deity. Your worth is beyond measure and has nothing to do with pathetic things like riding horses or swinging weapons as any commoner can do.

  Pride surged through Jonas and he held his head high. His was a regal figure as they wove their way through the crowds to exit the city. And he kept his head high when he chose to ride in the wagon after a half day in the saddle rubbed his thighs raw. The Templar could posture all he wanted. Only Jonas could share himself with his deity. Only Jonas was truly beloved by his deity, as more than a vessel to be used and tossed away.

  Abram gasped and sat down suddenly, his hand on his chest. He closed his eyes as he recognized the feeling from his father’s death. A connection severed. Master Tull was gone.

  “Abram? What’s wrong?” Casia asked. She poured a glass of water and handed it to him. Abram looked up to find Master Gursh gazing intently at him. Abram slowly nodded to him, and the man closed his eyes and looked away. Abram drank the water and stood.

  “Sorry,” he told Casia. “Must be the heat. Where were we again?”

  CHAPTER 15

  Kadar huddled with Onyeka and their band of warriors at the northern edge of the army encampment, two hours before dawn.

  Kadar was controlling twenty-­five horses with his talent—­forcing them to lie in the desert sand and keeping them unnaturally still and quiet. Onyeka and one of the other Tigus focused on the desert magic, creating the illusion that they were a part of the sand and life around them. There were four other teams like theirs spread along the south side of the camp, helping the sixty assassins from the tribes sneak into camp to kill the Knights controlling the Forsaken. Those other groups did not have horses to control and keep quiet. The returning assassins from those teams would simply melt back into the desert when they finished their tasks and meet at a set point where their mounts would be waiting to carry them south, to the Sands. Kadar and Onyeka’s group was on the northern side of the camp and would need the extra speed a horse could give to escape the fighters and retribution.