by Bill Fawcett
Meiglin overheard his ill news, while scouring the stacks of used crockery.
"Oh, you'll see business, come summer," the lean fellow told Tawbas, who had seized respite from the uproarious singing to sit smoking his squat pipe at the trestle. "More than you wish for, no doubt."
The innkeeper grunted. "Prosperity's no bad thing to wish for. But in summer? No civilized man boils his brains in Sanpashir. Not unless he's clanborn, and hunted, or a madman driven by devils."
"Devils indeed," the courier confided. Over the course of his hurried meal, he broke his shattering ill news. The defenders holding the Mistwraith in check had finally broken, at Spire. "Oh yes, there were deaths, a right tragic toll of them." He went on, though Tawbas' complaisant disposition was unlikely to mourn for the fallen. "Shand's liegemen foundered while fording the Ettin, which raged in the throes of spring flood. The High King was lost, and the next heir as well. The survivors are calling the new muster at Firstmark, and trying against hope to regroup. And of course, the Fellowship Sorcerers have summoned the next crown successor from Alland."
"That one better travel more guarded than bullion," Tawbas ventured across a strained pause. His cantankerous pipe had put itself out. Provoked by more than his usual irritation, he fussed over the steps to relight it. "The outpost at Ganish has turned for the mayors. Surely you knew? Best if you don't speak so freely of king's heirs. Desert law rules the road through these wastes, but fanatics still persecute clanblood. I can't risk my inn to vigilante justice. More than one man's had his business burned down for sympathy toward the wrong faction."
"That's why I can't stay," the courier confessed, and the discussion devolved into cut-throat haggling over the cost of a remount.
Meiglin scrubbed pots, chilled by dread thoughts. The sorrow seemed inevitable, that the sun shining over Sanpashir's bleak sands could be lost before summer solstice. If defenses at Firstmark could not be restored, the scourge that had swallowed the rest of the continent might strike through and drown all the world. The last patch of open sky would be gone. Even the southern reaches of Shand would become choked under fog that no Sorcerer's resource might lift.
That night, Meiglin dreamed. Blank billows of mist closed with strangling force, until she choked under a featureless shroud that muffled the landscape in white. Sunless, the greening earth languished. Crops failed, dusted with blight. Animals birthed stillborn offspring. On land and sea, the vigor of life waned away, until the weal of the world was left desolate.
"No!" Meiglin's cry raised a spurt of bright flame, a denouncement that sheared the dank quiet. When the cruel fog tightened its grip in response, she shouted again, and a third time sealed her denial. Horror for all of the land's spoiled grace drove her to desperate resistance. She would not give way, or let go of hope, though the whisper of fate insisted the end held no opening for salvation.
"Words carry power, child," a solemn voice answered, rolling thunder across the sere landscape. "Particularly words that are spoken three times, with heart and mind matched in conviction. Such fire as that creates binding magic."
"Who are you?" Meiglin snapped, too wounded to be cowed by the warning spun through her dream.
"I speak with the voice of the Fellowship Sorcerers, whose will shaped the line of your ancestry. S'Dieneval bears the power of prophecy. Beware how you wish, child. The mysteries are dwindled, not vanished from the world. They still tend the living heart of the earth. The last centaur guardian stands watch in Atainia. He will gather the thread of your steadfast desire. Through his hands, and the inherited ties to your bloodline, you could be claimed as the vessel to enact a far greater charge than you realize."
"I don't care!" The passion that moved Meiglin was already raised, and blazed beyond hope of quenching. "Three times spoken, or thrice three hundred, I won't endure a world plunged into darkness."
No more thunder rolled. The wise voice kept its counsel. Meiglin came softly awake in the garret that held her servant's pallet. No light burned but stars. Beyond the dusty panes of the casement, the night hung in suspended stillness. Meiglin drew in a shaken breath, thick with scent of parched sand, a heat brittle and dry as the scalded air over the coals of a forge fire. No breezes stirred. The earth seemed gripped in hush, the eerie hesitation in time that only occurred when the desert tribes' women held rites at the dark of the moon. Meiglin lay wakeful. Folded into that fabric of silence, she let its deep peace bring her ease. Unschooled as she was, she sensed nothing amiss. Nor did she know to look for the errant, sown seed to bear fruit as the moon swelled into full phase.
* * *
That day, when it came, began without fanfare. Meiglin fed the hens and raked out the stables. She kneaded the bread, then shouldered the unending task of washing and hanging out bed linens. Noon saw her gathering in the dry sheets, then serving tables in the close shade of the inn's shuttered taproom. Evening came on. The casements were latched back. A pall seemed to smear the northern horizon, perhaps the first harbinger of the dread mist. Tawbas lingered outside while the afterglow faded, afraid he had seen the last sunrise.
"Dust storm," said the outrider who jingled in after dark. "Just that and no more, though the sky you enjoy here abides on its last, borrowed time." The company at his heels was quite large, arrived as the inn usually closed for the night. The hour that had looked to be slow was made busy, with the trestles crowded to capacity. Meiglin poured beer, washed spoons and filled plates, too engrossed to care if the riders seemed closemouthed, with the odd man among them speaking low-voiced Paravian, or calling for food with the snap of clan accents.
"They're king's men," said Tawbas, too uneasy to smoke in the lull, when the taproom finally emptied. Under reddened light, as the cook banked the fires, he divulged perhaps more than was wise. "It's the crowned heir of Shand, riding to battle the Mistwraith, and not wanting to draw undue notice. He'll take water and provisions and leave before dawn, and not fare by way of the trade road."
"Ah, then they did come cross country?" said the cook, seated at last with her aching feet propped on the settle.
Tawbas nodded. "From the forest of Alland." Which explained why his inn had been visited unawares. No traffic moved between Atchaz and Innish, that the fast-riding couriers did not mark beforehand. "Meiglin," he added, "before you retire, please take the rind of leftover cheese and some bread and ale for the horse master's groom in the stable."
Meiglin fetched out the victuals. Willing to spare the exhausted cook, though too worn to retie her loose hair, she carried the tray through the open, back door, into the moon-washed yard.
The groom her errand charged her to find was not asleep in the hayloft. He had been at the well, stripped down for washing, when the rites of the tribes had displaced him. Lacking a towel, he had lingered outside for the winds to scour him dry. His soaked hair hung in an uncombed tangle. The soiled clothes he had intended to rinse still trailed from nonchalant fingers. He was gazing over the moon-flooded sands, too enthralled by the peace of the open sky to notice he had an observer. There, Meiglin beheld his naked form, bewitched herself by his beauty.
He was clanborn, to judge by the length of his hair, crimped in ripples from their custom of braiding. A creature just barely grown into his manhood, with his broadened shoulders sculpted with muscle, and his hips still boyishly slender. Meiglin froze between steps, the breath caught in her throat. Despite the shocked blush flaming her cheeks, she was unable to stop herself staring.
The inadvertent chink of a tankard betrayed her. The boy turned, all male, his features unveiled by the moonlight. Meiglin cried out with stunned recognition. Dreams had shown her that face, as well as the fate that must darken the course of the future.
"Don't go!" she blurted.
"You've seen me," he accused, as startled as she to discover himself under scrutiny. "You shouldn't. The Fellowship Sorcerers cast a glamour."
Meiglin's reply was unwontedly tart. "You're a bit hard to miss, are you not, in plain sight? And n
o groom as well, despite your claim to the contrary."
His eyebrows went up. "Then you know who I am?" He glanced, chagrinned, at the clothes in his fingers, too proud to retreat in embarrassment. "The glamour concealed me from everyone else. Are you warded, or just uncommonly fey?"
"I don't carry an amulet." Meiglin lingered, bereft of good sense, just as uselessly unable to recover the courtesy to turn away from the sight of him. His blue eyes held the same brash glint she recalled, touched silver under the moon.
"Don't go," she repeated. "I beg of you, don't. No good will come of your sacrifice."
His attentive gaze sharpened, as though, just that moment, he saw her for what she was. He strode forward. Breeches and shirt dropped from his heedless fingers, with only the tray's width between them. "If you're prophet enough to know who I am, then you'll see why I must go forward."
Meiglin shook her head. "I know nothing," she blurted, "except for your death, should you choose this road's bitter turning."
He regarded her, torn though by his anguish. "I can't go into exile through Westgate! Oh, the other kings' heirs went tamely enough. The Sorcerers were adamant that each royal bloodline should be secured in safety. Yet was I not born, except to stand guard for the soil under my feet? What life could I live, forsaking this ground, and fleeing the charge of my heritage? I am not going to run. This is my place! My crown oath of protection shall not be forsworn while the Mistwraith claims final triumph."
"Don't go," Meiglin begged, wide awake to the peril of words that were spoken thrice over. Yet the same stubborn hope that held him in denial kept her rooted until that fateful third time, he refused.
She dropped the tray. It fell with a crash of smashed crockery at her feet. Before she could bend, or exclaim in dismay, she found herself swept headlong into his arms.
"You'll cut yourself," he murmured in startled distress.
She opened her mouth, intending to chide. His concern was not worth foolish gallantry. Instead, she found herself meeting his kiss. Then his fingers captured the rich fall of her hair. He laid claim to her, there, while the moon shone down upon their twined forms and knotted a binding enchantment. He had silken, clean skin and a stag's rugged strength. The impetuous vitality behind his aware touch left Meiglin no breath for refusal. The spontaneous alchemy wrought by his embrace awoke her untapped, woman's passion.
He came to himself first, pulled back in dismay, and attempted a sensible apology. "Forgive me. You're beautiful. It's my bullish nature, charging ahead without manners. Never mind the broken plates. I'll pick up the mess. Go safely inside and forget me."
Meiglin looked into those moon-touched, clear eyes, possessed as though she was dreaming. Before he could loosen his grip, or stand off, she felt the cold wind from the future blow through, and scatter all prudence before it. "I won't go. Not inside. If the moon and the stars are as precious as that, let the Mistwraith not triumph, at least on this night." Whole hearted, she invited his eager heat. Her hands stroked his living, naked flesh, until she felt his response trample reason.
The warm sands of Sanpashir cradled their lovemaking through that night of wild abandon. They lay, oblivious to all but each other, while the desert tribes' women chanted completion, and danced the rites of full moon at the well.
By sunrise, he was gone, and with him, the name that Meiglin had neglected to ask of him. The throbbing, sweet ache of shared pleasure stayed with her, and a memory as rich as fine wine. That was all, so she thought; her gift nothing more than a comfort exchanged before his demise overtook him.
Except her monthly courses delayed, and then, never came. The queasy stomach that distressed her each morning soon raised the cook's ribald comment.
"Better cozen a wealthy merchant, my dear. A fat one who's older, and bedazzled enough to take you on as a mistress. Or else, sure's frost, the minute you're showing, Tawbas is bound to dismiss you. It's tribal law, did you not understand? The sacred ground of the spring cannot be defiled by lewd acts that offend their barbaric goddess."
Meiglin scrubbed pots, too wretched to argue. The child she carried could not be unmade. More than lust had arranged its conception. Nonetheless, the shame scalded. The uncanny power invoked through her dreams had dealt her an unkindly quandary. Now she faced the selfsame ruin that had undone her mother. The well-meant advice of the cook was no option. Meiglin could not bear the lie, to dizzy some gullible merchant with flirting kisses and flattery. The uglier prospect ran her blood cold, that she might be forced to seek haven at Innish, and earn living wage as a harlot. Though her agonized thoughts showed no better alternative, she refused to consider the herbal decoction the whores used to force an abortion. Bound by full knowledge of what she had done, she could not evade the harsh consequence. The child she harbored was a doomed father's legacy, sown under the shadow of prophecy.
Distraught with dread for her reckoning with Tawbas, Meiglin skulked like a ghost. She kept her head down, and finished the day's chores, one wearing week after the next.
When she went to the well, the desertfolk watched her. Their wise eyes surely read the fact she was bearing long before the first bulge strained her waistline. Once, a wizened matriarch grasped at her sleeve and gave warning in broken dialect.
"Dearie, the spirit you carry makes herself heard. She very well could draw the wrong sort of notice, with our world the more sorrowful for it."
Meiglin fled, her buckets abandoned. No voluminous apron or unbelted shift could shelter her for much longer. Once Tawbas noticed, she would be turned out, with no place to go, and no family name to grant her a stay of protection.
Yet before that momentous crisis could break, the unborn child herself attracted the eyes of an outside awareness. A party of three Koriani enchantresses ventured into Sanpashir, cloaked head to foot in their rich purple mantles, and the secrecy of their order. They traveled without escort, and ate in the common room, all to themselves in one corner. Meiglin felt their rapt gaze as she swept and fetched soup. Even through walls, she was made aware of their piercing, unnatural interest. Retreat to the stable failed to shake their spelled touch. These women with their uncanny arts had not visited the tavern by chance.
Meiglin shed tears in a mare's dusty mane, unable to shake looming dread. Power had found her. The gifts of her lineage were too brilliant to mask, and her straits left her desperately vulnerable.
Through the blinding heat of the late afternoon, the elder enchantress drew Tawbas aside and tried to buy Meiglin's service.
By then, Meiglin kneaded fresh dough in the kitchen. She heard the low-voiced exchange nonetheless, caught up in somnolent reverie.
"Your serving girl has fey blood, were you made aware when you took her in?" The senior with the red bands of rank on her sleeves went on to disclose the bald truth. "She dreams with the voice of a prophet."
Tawbas had not known. Nor was he at ease to find he had sheltered a clan foundling with errant talent.
The old woman conferred amid a rustle of silk robes. "We can pay, and quite well, for the privilege of taking the chit into Koriani fosterage."
Plainspoken Tawbas seemed lost for words, but not to the point of grasping the offer dishonestly. "She's not my kin, but only a hireling. In fairness, Meiglin should speak for herself."
Summoned forthwith, and granted the courtesy of a private room for the interview, Meiglin stood under the austere scrutiny of the sisterhood of enchantresses. The women measured her from under their hoods with the covetous interest of vultures.
They wasted no breath. "Your child will be born a mage-gifted girl. Come with us, take an initiate's oath with our order, and you can bear her with honor, in safety."
"And then?" Meiglin asked, uncertain and frightened. "What would become of us, after?"
The enchantresses stirred, as though touched by a breeze. The youngest of them offered answer. "Your daughter would be raised by the order, with all of her gifts given nurture. You are past the age to be trained to our arts, a sad loss
, but not beyond salvage. Your life as a dedicate would be well spent in charitable service to humanity."
Meiglin met those unswerving, stony eyes, and found them darkened with secrets. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Initiates cannot be mothers," their senior admitted with arid impatience. "Our vows require us to renounce ties to family. Join us, and you and your child will never want. But your lives, by our custom, must be separate."
Ripped by formless doubt, as inflamed by headstrong will as she had been on the night she lay wanton under the moonlight, Meiglin straightened. "No. Keep your fee. I'll take my chances with Tawbas."
"He must turn you out," the crone warned, set back and sharply displeased. "Our scryers have already foreseen that future. It's a miserable, short life in the brothels of Innish, and no lot to inflict on a daughter who's sure to inherit the gifts of your bloodline."
"No," Meiglin stated, and then, "no," again, to seal her adamant rejection.
The Koriathain stood. Before they could move, or lock the closed door, Meiglin ducked past, her heart pounding. She would not turn back. The mere thought scared her white. She had experienced such jagged panic before: the same avarice had glittered in the eyes of the madam who had sold out her mother to bountymen.
"Girl!" snapped the cook, as Meiglin bolted through the kitchen. "Are you brainless? Would you spit in contempt at the only chance you'll ever have at salvation?"
"I'll not live in oath-bound confinement!" Meiglin plunged through the side door, clambered over the midden, and fled at reckless speed across the baked earth of the hen yard. She slammed the wicket gate, wrung breathless as the sun blazed down on her uncovered head, and her composure finally shattered.
She stumbled, blindly sobbing, and collided headfirst into the arms of a stranger.
"You've no wish to take vows as a Koriani witch? Truly, my colleagues thought you might not." The old man smelled of wild herbs and wood smoke, as though he had slept in his robes by a fire out in the open. His manner reflected astringent delight as he set her back on her feet. "If you like, we could make that the grounds for a friendly conversation."