by Anne Logston
“—someday,” Randon said quickly. “Right now I expect we’d better press on while we can.”
By the time the first pink rays of the sun tinted the eastern horizon, Kayli was almost stumbling with weariness, and Randon, despite his rest, fared no better. They barely had strength to set up their lean-to before collapsing limply in its shade, and although Kayli thought briefly that it would be wise to set a watch, that thought barely flashed through her mind before she joined Randon in exhausted sleep.
She awakened in the late afternoon, aching and uncomfortably warm. Wearily she pushed herself up and crawled out of the lean-to to dig barrelroots for the night’s travels. Kayli realized how soft she’d lived since she’d gone to Agrond; her muscles were stiff and aching, and even after a whole day’s rest she felt tired. Unhappily she realized that there was nothing left to eat but a little dried fruit and a small piece of meat that was beginning to smell gamy. They would certainly have to stop earlier this time to forage and try to snare and smoke some small game, hopefully enough to last them for several days’ travel.
Kayli took a certain guilty comfort in seeing that Randon, when he rose, moved as stiffly as she, but he made no complaint when she suggested that they eat their small store of food as they walked. They were both so sore and irritable that at first they walked in silence, but after some time Randon spoke.
“Kayli—you’ve said that we were heading for Olhavar,” Randon said at last, very slowly. “But have you thought about why? Do you think your father will be—will have made it back there by now?”
“My father is dead.” The words were out of Kayli’s mouth before she admitted in her heart that they were true. Every time the thought had started to form in her mind, she had resolutely pushed it aside. She could hardly bear to remember her mother’s torn and blackened body on the ground, and Melia, Kirsa—even now it seemed unreal, a terrible dream to vanish on waking.
But it did not vanish; like that same dream, the vision came back to haunt her again and again.
“My father is dead,” Kayli repeated. “He would not have left my mother, nor Melia and Kirsa, to die. No. Either the Sarkondish killed him and bore his body away for”—her mind rebelled at the thought of what desecrations the Sarkondish might perform on her father’s corpse, “...for purposes of their own, or they captured him, and he is dead by his own hand.”
Randon glanced at her rather warily.
“Are you so certain of that?” he asked. “Remember Seba and the others.”
Kayli smiled sadly but said nothing. Children might be too frightened and confused to take their own lives as duty required, but High Lord Elaasar was well mindful of the advantages Sarkond could gain from his capture. No. Death was a small price to pay for the freedom and safety of his country, and a swift death at his own hand would doubtless spare him terrible torments later. In a way it was comforting to know that her father had died quickly and cleanly. “What about the priest and your sister Kairi, and the other one, Danine?” Randon asked after another moment’s thought
“I dare to hope that Kairi lives,” Kayli said cautiously, as if her words would break some mystical shell of safety around her sister. “The rainstorm that saved us could only have been her doing; Brother Santee was not a water-Dedicate. If Brother Santee lived, his first duty would be to save Kairi, as Heir. If Danine was with them, she, too, may be alive. And that is one reason why I travel toward Olhavar, for if Kairi lives, she will be bound for the castle to assume her duties there.” She shook her head. “But first I would make a visit to my Order.”
“Your Order?” Randon gave her a surprised glance. “Kayli, we hardly have time for visiting.”
“My Order is the one place in Bregond where I can be sure of our safety and our welcome,” Kayli said quietly. “Even if Kairi is—is not at the castle, even if every single citizen of Bregond rebelled against the alliance and would turn their hand against us, at the Order we would find sanctuary. When I have learned from High Priestess Brisi all that has happened in Bregond since I left, and perhaps what has transpired at the capital since the raiders attacked, then I will better know what we should do next. And if it would be—unwise—to return to Olhavar, the High Priestess can Gate us back to Agrond.”
“There’s sense in what you say,” Randon admitted. “All right, then, I’ll trust to your judgment.”
The mere thought of returning to the Order, however briefly, awoke a pang of longing in Kayli’s breast. There she would find the dearest friends she had ever known, people she could trust without hesitation. There would be help for her, Brisi’s sage counsel to help her regain her lost confidence in her magic, and help for Randon’s sensitivity, too, surely. And at the temple she could properly mourn her family and send their spirits on with her prayers.
Those thoughts lightened Kayli’s feet, and as her muscles gradually warmed to the long hours of walking, her heart lightened somewhat, too.
Shortly after midnight they emerged from the grass onto a true road, or at least a well-worn and heavily rutted track. Moreover, tracks and fresh droppings indicated that a caravan had passed in the not-too-distant past, a caravan which Kayli and Randon might reach if they kept their pace throughout the night.
“But what if we do catch up with the caravan?” Randon asked practically. “What kind of a welcome can I expect here?”
“A very poor one,” Kayli admitted. “But I will think of some story by that time. And I dare not tell my identity, either, and we have nothing to trade for assistance except the cloaks. But I can think of no alternative.”
“Now I’m sorry I made such a fuss about your speaking crystal,” Randon said abashedly. “You said I might one day find it useful, and the Bright Ones blight me if I don’t wish we had it now.”
Kayli laughed, then paused, thinking.
“There may be another way,” she said hesitantly. “But we must first build a fire.”
“More magic?” Randon asked her, hope lighting his eyes.
“Of a sort.” Kayli was somewhat dismayed at his eagerness, for she had far less faith in her skill than he. “There are rituals by which one fire-Dedicate may communicate with another through fire, but I had not progressed to those rituals. What I can do is perhaps—improvise. But you must promise to go far away while I try,” she added quickly. “I cannot concentrate and protect you from my magical energies at the same time.”
“Then let’s try it,” Randon said, nodding quickly. “After all, we have nothing to lose.”
Kayli wanted to retort that she had a very great deal to lose, indeed, but she remained silent. Randon helped her to clear the ground and dig a firepit, hacking at the hard earth with her digging stick white she walked up and down the road gathering dried horse droppings to burn. When the fire was readied, Kayli knelt beside the pit and began a calming ritual to clear her mind for the effort to come.
She had hardly seen, much less studied, any of the fire communication rituals, although they were nearer her level of skill than the Rite of Renewal and far less dangerous. Still, what need had she had for those methods when she had the speaking crystal? So now she had not the slightest knowledge of the format of the proper rituals.
Just as an Initiate could dispense with the elaborate purifications and meditations of a novice’s first firewalk, priests and priestesses learned in time to work their magic without detailed rituals, using their magic almost instinctively within the framework of their carefully honed control. Kayli understood the principles of magical communication, and she certainly understood the Flame; she only hoped her control was sufficient to find the meeting of the two.
By dint of careful concentration, she was able to light their small fire without scattering sparks, and that small success bolstered her confidence. Kayli gazed deeply into the flames, focusing her thoughts upon Brisi, just as she had done when she had used the speaking crystal. She built an image of the High Priestess’s face in her mind, feature by feature, picturing it among the dancing fla
mes, and when the image was complete, she sent her message through it in a single stream of tightly focused thought
For a moment it seemed as though Kayli was shouting into a great empty void, with no knowledge if any could hear her, then her thoughts found that special twist, as if a bolt slipped smoothly into place. Brisi’s countenance within the fire grew clearer, and slowly other images began to form about it, until Kayli recognized the High Priestess’s own chambers.
“Kayli!” Brisi’s expression flickered from amazement to relief. “Child, you have no idea how great is my joy to learn that you live! Only hours ago word reached us from an Order near the edge of the country that the High Lord’s party had been killed to the last! Where are you, and how do you fare?”
“My husband and I are unharmed,” Kayli said, fighting to speak and still retain control of her makeshift spell. “But we have little food and water and have no knowledge of our location, only that we are two days’ walk from the border on one of the roads. Can you send help to us?”
“Send help? Oh, my student, I can do far better than that,” Brisi said quickly. “I will cast a fire Gate and bring you here immediately.”
“No, no, you must not do that,” Kayli said quickly. “My husband Randon is—is sensitive to fire magic, but untrained. I do not know how passing through a fire Gate might affect him.”
“I shall attend to that,” Brisi said firmly. “It will take me some time to make preparations. Stay where you are, and in the meantime you must prepare a firepit large enough for the Gate. Any fuel will suffice, even grass, for we will sustain the fire from our side. Prepare, and wait.” Brisi’s image vanished abruptly from the fire.
“Well, what’s next, then?” Randon asked, when Kayli had called him back to the fire and explained what had transpired.
“We wait”—Kayli sighed, picking up the digging stick—“and dig.”
It was midmorning by the time they finished enlarging the firepit. When they finished, Randon suggested that Kayli rest while he kept watch; she demurred, however, insisting that she needed to keep a fire burning in the firepit and monitor it for whatever magic Brisi might bring there, and besides, she wanted Randon as far away from such magic as he would consent to go.
The sun reached its zenith when the fire in the firepit began to grow. Kayli stopped placing new fuel on the fire; these flames, she knew, drew their life from a different source. Within moments the small blaze had grown to the size of a large wagon, and the flames had taken on a silver hue, and Kayli knew that Brisi’s fire Gate was complete even before the High Priestess herself stepped forth from it, her dust-pale robes and the stray ends of her white-streaked braids fluttering as if the inferno around her were a mere summer breeze.
“Kayli, my child,” Brisi exclaimed, taking Kayli’s hands and smiling with such warmth that for a moment Kayli was dizzy with relief. ”There is no greater joy than I feel at this moment, seeing you standing safe before me, unless it will be the delight of bringing you home once more to the Order.” She turned and smiled rather more formally at Randon. “And this is your Agrondish lord for whom you have dared so much.”
Randon bowed with a dignity that belied his torn and smudged clothing and sunburned face.
“It’s my honor to meet the mentor of whom Kayli has spoken with such affection,” he said. “And for your assistance, I know that you’re as wise and kind as Kayli portrayed you.”
“Well! Your words are as handsome as your face, young lord,” Brisi said with some amusement “But for now I would put courtly chatter aside and see you safely within the walls of the Order before one of our folk slits your handsome throat. And for your protection, I have brought you this.” She drew a vial from her pocket and handed it to Randon. “A potent sleeping draught. It should prevent you from being affected by the energies of the Gate. Drink, and when you sleep, Kayli and I will bear you across. Now, if you please. The Gate will not remain open for long.”
Randon uncorked the vial and sniffed the contents, his eyes flickering to Kayli. She nodded, and after another moment of hesitation, he tipped the vial up and swallowed the contents. A moment later he swayed on his feet, and Kayli hurried to ease him to the ground when he would have fallen.
Brisi joined her at Randon’s side, taking one of his arms while Kayli took the other.
“Quickly, now, child,” the High Priestess said. “This Gate was hastily cast; I would not like it to collapse while we are yet within it.”
Kayli steadied Randon against her side, took a calming breath, and with Brisi, stepped through the Gate.
Kayli had never passed through a Gate before—there had been no necessity, when her family home lay less than a day’s ride from the Order—but whatever she might have expected, it was not the instantaneous and seamless transition from the dry plains to the great firepit of the Order’s inner temple. Kayli stumbled from hard-packed dirt to coals to the flagstones of the floor without even feeling the heat of the fire, then eased Randon down to the stone floor, nearly collapsing with him, as much from relief as from a great and soul-deep weariness. In the greatest possible sense, she was home; this temple’s residents had been her family as surely as her parents and her sisters, and now they were all she had left.
“When there is time, you must tell me all that has passed,” Brisi said, steadying Kayli when she swayed on her feet. “But for now I see you are exhausted. Come, I have a room prepared for you, and the novices will attend to your lord. He will sleep for some time—and from the look of you both, that is all to the good.”
The hallway outside the inner temple was fairly lined with priests, priestesses, and novices, and while they kept their faces carefully impassive, the welcome Kayli could see in their eyes was the best homecoming she could have imagined.
Kayli had expected to be taken to her old novice cell, but to her surprise the High Priestess opened the door to a vacant room farther within the temple, where the priests and priestesses lived. Brisi smiled slightly at her surprise.
“You are an Initiate, child,” Brisi reminded her. “And an honored guest besides. And when your lord awakens, you must have room for him, too.”
That was true, and Kayli was simply too tired and drained to argue in any event. When her mentor had left her alone, she barely managed to pull off her boots before she collapsed on the pallet and slept deeply, with the relaxed abandon that only a homecoming could bring.
Chapter Fifteen
Kayli woke to a gentle knocking at her door. Gone were her novice days when she rose from her bed at morning serene and refreshed; now she groaned, stretched her aching muscles, and croaked, “Come.”
Second Circle Priestess Vayavara opened the door only wide enough to look in.
“High Priestess Brisi wishes to break her fast in your company,” she said coldly. “Prepare yourself quickly.”
“What of Randon?” Kayli asked, but it was too late; the priestess had already closed the door again.
Kayli’s room might dwarf her spartan novice quarters, but the same copper pitcher of cold water sat in the same copper washbasin, a small pot of rendered-fat soap beside it. Kayli made the quickest toilet she could; her tumbled braids, stray tendrils of hair fluffing around them, would have to wait until she had the time to comb out her hair, preferably wash it, and braid it again.
A clean buff priestess’s robe hung on a peg on the wall. Kayli fingered the robe uneasily; it seemed presumptuous to wear the robe when she had never formally undergone Initiation, much less ascended to the rank of priestess. But the robe was clearly placed there for her use, and the only alternative was her grass-torn and travel-stained riding clothes. Reluctantly she donned the robe and made her way to the High Priestess’s quarters, knocking timidly at the door.
“Come.” Brisi’s room was exactly as Kayli remembered it, but she was hard put to keep her expression calm and impassive when she saw the High Priestess herself. Brisi had aged visibly since Kayli had seen her the night before, her cheeks gaunt, her
eyes hollow, but with a sort of frenetic fire burning deep within them.
“Come, sit beside me and eat,” Brisi said, and Kayli was somewhat reassured to hear the same calm, gentle strength that her mentor’s voice had always conveyed. She quietly seated herself in the empty chair across from Brisi, waiting for the High Priestess to break bread before she reached for a cake.
“I thought Randon would be here,” Kayli said at last.
“Your husband still sleeps.” Brisi smiled and poured hot cai into Kayli’s cup. “The potion I gave him was quite strong, and he appeared to need the rest. From what I hear of events in Agrond, he has been sorely tried in the last months. Be assured that he rests in comfort and safety, but I do welcome the chance to speak to you alone. Do you regret that opportunity?”
“No,” Kayli admitted. In truth she wondered how she would have dared speak of her doubts in Randon’s presence.
“But this,” Kayli said, touching the robe. “I am not entitled to this honor.”
Brisi waved a hand dismissively.
“As you could have no Awakening here within the temple, there could be no formal Initiation performed here,” the High Priestess said. “But you are Awakened, and you have continued your studies as an Initiate. And any of my novices capable of performing the Rite of Renewal successfully—or nearly so—is a priestess in fact if not by formal ritual.”
This time Kayli was shaken to her core.
“How did you know?” she whispered. “How did you know that I had performed the Rite of Renewal? And that—that I had not—”
Brisi smiled a little sadly and reached across the small table to pat Kayli’s hand.
“You were my student for more than a decade,” the High Priestess said gently. “I know that student well. When I bade you not attempt the ritual, I saw in your eyes that you would disobey. When you never called me again and I had no word of your death, I knew you had succeeded. And when I first saw you and felt the Flame burning wild through you, I knew that your success was less than perfect.”