by David Wind
He didn’t need to stop Charka, who sensed a sudden change in Mikaal and even as the blue-coated kraal stopped, Mikaal was off the saddle. He pulled Areenna from Hero’s back and drew her close to him. He held her tightly with one arm and with his free hand, pulled the silks from her face.
Accepting the glaring anger pouring from her eyes, he kept her tight against him. Wisely, he did not speak, neither with word nor with thought, but simply held her to him. Her eyes changed and tears spilled down her cheeks. Still, he held her silently. She buried her face against his fur-covered chest and let out the emotions that had built so quickly, the emotions she had been hiding for far too long.
They stood together for several long minutes until Areenna lifted her head and whispered, “I am sorry.”
I am sorry, she repeated silently.
Sorry for being alive… for feeling? Or, sorry for being afraid of not knowing what lies ahead?
She favored his words with a barely visible upturn at the corners of her mouth. “No, for acting like a child.”
“I’m afraid, My Princess, you are anything but.” With that, he kissed her.
The kiss was nothing like the one she had stolen when he was healing and asleep. This kiss branded her lips. More than the touch of his mouth was the sense of his becoming a part of her. It was as if they had become one person, one mind.
When the kiss ended, she drew away from him, shaking her head. We cannot!
Kiss? Who made this rule? Who says we cannot?
She cut him off from her thoughts. “We must stay focused. We must hold to what we have been sent to accomplish.”
“And a kiss prevents such?” he asked. The sarcasm sliced sharply through her.
“Yes,” she said. The softness in her voice was a counterpoint to his sharpness. “It changes us, makes us react differently. Please, there is so much... It is hard for me. Do you understand?”
“I don’t want to understand,” he said, his eyes locked on hers. “But I will do as you need me to. Do you understand?” he snapped.
Before she could speak, a mind picture replaced Mikaal’s face. Gaalrie had found the woman. She watched as the treygone flew over a section of the trail piled high with snow and chunks of ice. Areenna saw an arm and part of a head sticking out of the whiteness.
“We must go. Gaalrie has found the woman and she needs us.” Without a backward glance at him, she mounted Hero and moved forward. Behind her, Mikaal shook his head and jumped on Charka’s back. It took a half hour to reach the small avalanche, and when they did, they saw the same as had Gaalrie.
Throughout the ride, Areenna had been unable to sense the woman, for she had put up a block. Though weak and easy to find, it held strongly enough to stop her from sensing more than her presence.
The block tells me she fears us, Areenna told Mikaal.
Why? She knows us not.
Perhaps for that reason. We will find out soon enough.
Jumping off their kraals, they ran to where the woman lay buried. Mikaal, his hands, covered in fire when they reached her, used the fiery coating to melt snow as he dug. Areenna’s hand went to his shoulder before he got too far.
Wait. Mikaal stopped at the instant of her touch.
Stepping back and spreading her arms, Areenna called forth her abilities. The heat flared deep within her, centered just above the joining of her legs and like flames spreading through dried grass, it raced through her body until reaching her fingers.
She called on the divining, and drew the snow and ice off the woman, slowly at first so as not to move any chunks of ice supporting the heavier snow above it. When the woman was almost free, Mikaal reached into the opening Areenna had created and pulled her out.
I have her. Nodding Mikaal, she moved her hands. Whirls of snow and ice rose. With her right hand, she sent the column of snow to the right, where it cascaded over the side of the mountain and fell to the ice field below.
She turned to Mikaal, who was kneeling and holding the woman. Her eyes were open, staring at Areenna. The woman trembled, shaking not as much with the cold, as with fear. Areenna stood still, her eyes fixed on the woman. She was small, no bigger than a twelve-year-old girl, but her face was that of a forty-year-old woman. Her eyes, larger than normal and browless, were the color of dark straw. She had never seen such eyes before.
She glanced at Mikaal. Exile?
He shrugged. Out here?
“We will not harm you,” Areenna said, coming close to the woman and kneeling next to her. “Are you injured?”
The woman’s pale eyes danced between Areenna and Mikaal. Her breathing slowed and she nodded. “My leg,” she answered and pointed to her left calf.
Areenna bent closer, reached down and feeling along the woman’s calf until she reached a point two-thirds toward the ankle. “Broken, but not too bad.”
“Can you heal it here?” Mikaal asked.
The woman’s lips were almost blue. Standing, she took off her cloak and spread it on the trail, fur down. “There is no choice. Put her on it,” she told Mikaal.
Mikaal lifted the woman from his lap and gently placed her on the cloak. She cried out only once, when he laid her down.
“Slice her leathers,” she directed Mikaal. He split the leather using the bone handle knife, and peeled it back to expose the injury. Areenna knelt beside her. Before she did anything, she glanced at Mikaal and thought of her earlier words. This is perhaps the most important gift I have received; it gives, not takes.
Areenna locked eyes with the woman. “Will you trust me to help you?”
The woman held Areenna’s gaze for a moment and nodded. Areenna closed her eyes, placed her hands over the cracked bone of the woman’s calf, and called on her healing gift. Everything went black. The only thing visible was the glow around the woman’s calf as Areenna placed her hands carefully over the skin.
Holding the leg gently, she pushed the flow of energy directly into the bone and slowly manipulated her ability into melding the bones together. As it always did when caught within this power, time stood absolutely still. Her ability flowed through her, heating her body and hands as she mended the leg.
Finally, she drew her hands back and inhaled sharply. In spite of the freezing air, regardless of her having no cloak, the powers Areenna had called forth had warmed her to the point of sweating. Opening her eyes, she found the pale ones of the woman fixed on her. Bending closer, Areenna placed her hand on the side of the woman’s head. Can you sense me?
The woman lifted a six-fingered hand and covered Areenna’s with it. I hear you.
You need not fear us.
I know that now. How be you here? You look not like exiles.
Areenna realized this was a woman of strong power, unexpectedly so. The rhythm of her words held a strange, older feel. We seek a place, she explained and brought up a mind picture of the mountain with the two peaks.
“You go to the mountain,” the woman said aloud, a tone of reverence filling her words.
“We do,” Mikaal answered for them both. “You know it?”
She nodded. “No one is permitted there. To tread upon the mountain is to find death.”
“We have been sent to the mountain.”
Sent? This cannot be.
Sense you deception within me?
The woman’s eyes glazed over. She lifted her hand and raised it to Areenna’s chest. Then, she placed it over the girl’s heart and closed her eyes. Three seconds later, the woman’s eyes sprang open. You speak with truth.
“Why are you out here alone?” Mikaal asked.
“To gather herbs as I have done for most of the years of my life.”
“In the ice?” Mikaal asked, shaking his head. “Where can herbs live in this desert of ice?”
The woman smiled at Areenna. Men see only what is before them. It is truly sad.
Mikaal mentally stiffened, having forgotten he had joined with her before.
The woman shifted and winced. “Many herbs thrive here
. They grow without sunlight and live beneath the frost.”
“Where do you live?” Mikaal asked, looking the woman over.
“My village is a half day from here. You will be welcomed… and fed. My name is Sirod,” she said.
Smiling at the woman, she replied, “I am Areenna, he is Mikaal.”
Mikaal’s eyes flicked to Areenna. Welcomed or…
“Your face tells me you doubt me,” Sirod said to Mikaal.
He studied her face, swept his eyes across hers before saying, “There are those who seek us, those who would reward you for our capture.”
Sirod stiffened. “I am Woman of the Village. What I say is bond, to myself and to my people.”
CHAPTER 25
Standing at the rail of Timon’s boat, Enaid studied the remains of the Dark Master’s fleet. It had been several days since the Black Sorceress’s death; in those days, much had happened.
Following the battle, the four women of power had spent the rest of the day and most of the night within the midst of the forces of Nevaeh, taking care of the wounded. While the healers had tended the wounded, Prince Nevets and King Nomis had worked with their people to bury the dead. Roth and Enaid had walked to a place away from the others, where they could talk freely.
“We must follow the Master. We cannot allow him to stop Areenna and Mikaal. They are strong, but his forces will overrun them. There are too many, no matter how strong Areenna and Mikaal have become.”
“There is only one way to get there quickly— by water,” Roth stated.
“Timon and his fleet are here now. Ilsraeth goes to meet him.”
“We will do the same.” Roth swept his hand toward the men and women spread across the distance. He glanced up at the disappearing moon, heralding the dawn of a new day. “Today they will rest while we work with Timon. Tomorrow we go north.”
They had met the Master Boatsman two hours after sunrise. His fleet of small boats had numbered twenty, each with full crews. The boats had been small and could not have carried a sufficient number of their forces: they decided instead, to use the abandoned ships of the Dark Ones. When they’d gone to the ships, they found the sails slashed and the tillers removed. It had taken two days to mend a single set of sails and for Layra, who had a finely tuned sense of search, to find a rudder in shallow enough water for Enaid to raise from the bottom.
To Roth, what the Master had done to his ships had led him to realize he had no plans to leave Nevaeh.
Now, at midmorning on the third day, they were ready.
Enaid turned to Roth, who stood behind her with Timon, watching the loading of the men and women and the necessary supplies to keep them alive. “I sense no bad weather before us,” she shared.
Timon motioned to the large ship. “That ship will be enough to worry about without dealing with weather. At least the stench of those things—I cannot call them men—is almost gone,” he added with a shake of his head. “The rudder is seated and working and the sails will hold well. With a good wind and a bit of luck we’ll be there in a few days. It is a clumsy vessel at best. How it made the crossing, I cannot understand.”
Roth placed a hand on Timon’s shoulder and squeezed. “Luck will have nothing to do with it. Your strong hands on the wheel is all we need.”
The Master Boatsman did not respond for several seconds. “Your Highness, I hope your words lend truth to my hands.
“Solomon… I have no doubts. And now, Timon my friend, it’s time to go.”
<><><>
“I should have expected this,” Mikaal said when they passed through the mouth of a huge cavern. Mikaal on Charka and the two women on Hero entered a valley not unlike the one they had found inside the chasm. A warm breeze washed over them, and Mikaal drew Charka to a halt.
“It is like the other valley, but not,” he observed, rising on the saddle to take in what laid ahead and around him. The cavern was huge and he could see no signs of its end. It was lighter than in the other valley as well, with the hazy pale gray light of the frozen lands encasing everything. He looked up but saw nothing above them. There were trees and shrubs in abundance; strange tress with pale yellow leaves. The shrubs held yellow leaves as well. Mikaal closed his eyes and let his senses range. He found rabts and other small animals, but no larger ones; of birds, there were none.
He turned to the women just as Areenna opened her cloak to let Gaalrie free. The treygone rose upward in lazy circles, her cinnamon and silver wings spread wide to catch whatever the updrafts. As the aoutem flew, Sirod, sitting behind Areenna said, “A narrow road will be on the left, a short distance ahead. We take that.”
Connected to Gaalrie, Areenna sent an asking for the treygone to find and follow the road, while next to her, Mikaal said, “Your villagers, your people, they will not attack us?”
Before she could answer, he started them forward again, ignoring the look of disdain that had crossed her features.
“What purpose would serve such an act?”
“To protect themselves. To help you,” he said to the woman while pushing his thoughts to Areenna. She speaks strangely.
“What would a village fear from two who still hold the vestiges of youth?”
“You would not want to know.” He had spoken quietly, but each word carried with it the loudness of a thunderclap.
Mikaal!
Mikaal mentally shook himself. The woman cocked her head to the side when she gazed at him and he knew she was trying to figure out his sudden mood change. “How far to your village?”
“Not far, a short distance after we reach the turnoff.”
“It is around the next bend,” Areenna said as Gaalrie swooped over it and flew in the direction of the village.
“Your… bird. You can join with it?”
“You do not know of aoutems?”
“The word is unknown to me,” Sirod said.
Areenna hesitated before saying, “I was fourteen when my body changed from child to woman and my abilities grew strong and I found Gaalrie as a hatchling. There was a connection between us, as it is with most women of power from where I come. We bonded to each other and we became sisters. Aoutems are… They are a part of us and we become a part of them.”
Behind her, Sirod leaned forward to press her cheek against Areenna’s back. “So different are we, yet the same we are as well.”
A few minutes later, they reached the turnoff to the narrow road. A few trees were scattered alongside the road ahead, but more spread from there. While the leaves were more yellow than green, the trees appeared to thrive within the cavernous valley.
Mikaal, join with me. He did and found himself joined as well with Gaalrie, who was flying high over the village. The village was comprised of many buildings, all with roofs of yellow leaves. It spread out from a center square with the small buildings forming rings around the square. Mikaal instantly saw the beauty of it; the construction of the village was purely defensive. There were six rings of buildings—homes he was certain—each was staggered off-center to the one in front, so one had to zig and zag to get to the square. This would slow an attacking force to give the defenses time to build.
Mikaal understood; whoever had designed the village had been a Master of wartime defense. It made him think of his father and of what Roth would say about this village.
Gaalrie circled the village once more and Mikaal continued to look it over. Off to the side was a larger building. Its purpose was not evident. He saw people walking in the streets between the buildings as Gaalrie made her final turn and started her return.
When Gaalrie rejoined her, they were halfway to the village and passing cultivated fields. It took fifteen minutes to reach the first ring of houses. Areenna’s reaction on seeing the houses was surprise. Every house was the same. Each was a single story rectangle with a peaked roof made of woven yellow leaves and windows of glass.
The buildings.. .look closely Mikaal. They are not wood; they are the same as the building in the cavern where you heal
ed. It is the same wood but not wood.
They are the descendants of the ones who had lived there.
Why choose to live here? They could have gone to Welkold or Lokinhold and not have lived… here.
The unanswered question lingered in their minds as they rode deeper into the village. When they neared the center, the villagers were gathering in the square. Areenna watched them come toward her, Mikaal and Sirod. While a few appeared to have normal bodies, there were many, who did not. Their mutations were not visibly severe, yet there were those like Sirod who had malformed hands or extra fingers. Some had twisted bodies while others carried their differences on their face, in the set of their eyes or a strangely formed mouth, yet all appeared healthy and vital.
The square was not large, perhaps a hundred and twenty feet across. In the center was a small platform standing a few feet above the yellowish grass. The platform was made of the same strange wood-like material. Other than the platform, the square was empty of any decorations.
“Stop here,” Sirod said when they reached the far side of the square, in front of a slightly larger building. A young girl, perhaps eleven or twelve, raced out from the building and came to where the kraals had stopped.
Just before she reached the animals, Sirod dismounted, making sure her good leg was the first to touch the ground. When she stood and turned, the girl raced into her arms. “Mother, I was worried for you. I knew you had been hurt,” she said, hugging Sirod.
“Here now I am, with thanks to these two who helped me,” she said, releasing her daughter and turning with her to Areenna and Mikaal, who stood next to Hero.
“My daughter Neleh,” Sirod said in introduction. “This is Mikaal and Areenna.”
Neleh took two steps toward them and bowed her head formally. “My thanks to you for helping my mother.”
The powerful aura surrounding the child caught Areenna by surprise. While she knew none other than a woman of power could see the aura, it burst with colors so magnificent she couldn’t imagine any man or woman unable to see its beauty. Purples and pale blues, amber and gold swirled around the child like a cocoon. Do you see it? she asked Mikaal.