by Shannah Jay
'Are you sure?' Jonner worried. 'I mean, is it just a possibility or is it certain?'
Katia's expression was serene. 'Nothing is ever certain, in this life or the next, but it is the most likely place.'
'I don't think I know Therak Bowl,' said Jonner.
'It's in the High Alder. Not near any large settlement,' Kensin said. 'I can take you there, if you like.'
'Hey, we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves here,' Quedras said. 'All right. I believe you, Katia.' How could he not, after what he had seen since he first met the Kindred? 'But before we go exploring, we need to agree that we'll not breathe a word of this to anyone except ourselves and our mates. And even later, when we're preparing for battle, we'll just talk about the Hapslith Terraces, not this Therak Bowl place. You never know when someone will pass on a piece of information without meaning to.'
Davred raised one hand. 'Except Herra, of course.' There was a chorus of voice echoing their agreement as he explained, 'She'll be late today because she had to supervise a difficult healing, but she
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must be told everything.'
'Must be told everything about what?' a voice asked behind him and Herra entered the small hall which was had now been turned into the defence headquarters. She saw Katia still standing there, eyes glazed, and moved across to her, with a soundless 'Oh!' of surprise breathing from her lips. Katia wasn’t prone to prophesying.
Katia blinked the room back into proper focus and clutched her beloved mentor's hand. 'The final battle will take place at Therak Bowl, Herra, but it will begin on the Hapslith Terraces. And,' she gulped, 'I can see them.' Tears began to roll down her cheeks.
'See who?' Herra's hand was gentle on her shoulder.
'See the dead. So many dead.'
'They will die joyfully,' Herra insisted.
Katia blinked at her.
'Would you not die joyfully to save our land from Discord?'
Everyone was watching, giving her the rapt attention she usually drew nowadays. Some of them nodded immediately when she said that, others frowned and nodded more slowly. Perhaps joyfully was not the right word, but 'willingly' was.
Slowly Katia inclined her head. 'Yes. Yes, of course I would.' But she wondered, as she often did, how she could ever manage to remain joyful if she saw anything happening to Davred, or to her beloved sons, Alaran and Erlic.
Herra put one arm around her. 'Dear child, unless we cling to the idea of joy, we are lost.'
Katia sighed and sagged against the Elder Sister for a moment. 'It's hard. So very hard.' For she had never killed in her whole life, not even a food animal. And now she would be expected to fight men who were trying to kill her, and kill them to prevent this, perhaps. She steeled herself to accept that thought. First the idea, then the deed, they said in the Sisterhood. This was one of those things you had to do, however much it hurt. Those of the Serpent could not be left free to wreak havoc and murder innocent people.
'Everything worth gaining is hard, else where would be the achievement?' With those comforting words, Herra left Katia's side and moved to the head of the long table. Her voice rang out as she addressed the Council of War and her eyes blazed with that golden light that spilled from them and outlined her like a halo more and more often. 'Joy!' she said firmly. 'And it will be a joy to help save the Twelve Claims.'
She waited until her words had faded and then the seriousness of her expression eased. 'We'll have to go and visit the Hapslith Terraces, then, and learn the lie of the land. Are they far away, Katia?'
'A few days' journeying to the west, and Therak Bowl lies in the mountains just behind them.'
Herra nodded. 'Right. Now, what excuse shall we give for going there?'
Benjan cleared his throat. 'We could say we're going to meet some representatives from the Hashite Guild. In fact, we could actually meet them there. I've received messages from the First and Second Ranks. They want to talk to us. They've reiterated their decision not to deal with the Serpent, but they're not sure yet whether to help us.' He grinned. 'They don't like the idea of fighting without getting paid for it. They're hoping to screw some coin out of us.'
There was a general murmur of irritation at that. The Hashites of the Third Rank were united behind the Kindred, and had never even hinted at wanting payment, but the First and Second Ranks had hedged and prevaricated, refusing to give any commitment, either way.
'What caused them to make the decision not to deal with the Serpent, then, if no one from our side was paying them?' Erlic asked. He attended the council meetings to represent the deleff and today his strangeness was very evident. Indeed, it had been growing in him more rapidly lately, this difference to others. His hair looked pure silver, outlined by a ray of sunlight, and his eyes were glinting with that iced-silver light that often made newcomers nervous, until they grew used to his innate gentleness.
Even the way Erlic stood was wrong lately, though most people couldn’t have said why. Cheral could have told them. Cheral could have explained exactly how people's muscles usually worked, and exactly how Erlic's differed. Jonner would have sworn sometimes that when Erlic walked there was just the faintest echo of a K-Thump in his footsteps, even on soft ground. And those who knew him well had all seen the shadow flickering along the ground behind him occasionally - the shadow of a deleff not a man.
'Sen-Sether attacked the First and Second Ranks' headquarters - though he thought he was just attacking a village each time,' Benjan's voice was sombre as he added, 'He has, it seems, burned many villages, any place his men could reach from their line of march. If the people in the villages were not of the Serpent, then they were all killed. He took a few places by surprise at first, but then the word spread and now they flee before his army. He should have been more careful not to alienate people with his looting and burning, but arrogance like that can see nothing save its own needs.'
'Well, we can do nothing about that. And I'm afraid I've just received some other disquieting news,'
Herra declared, her face clouded.
They waited stoically for another blow to fall. One or two braced their shoulders instinctively; others used a breathing pattern to steady themselves. It had been like that for a while now - good news, followed by bad. And all the time, the final confrontation with evil was growing nearer.
'It seems that Sen-Sether has found a way to give more power to the Serpent.' Herra repeated Jozlin's story and waited till the angry muttering had died down.
'There is no real certainty that we'll win this struggle, is there?' Benjan asked, voicing the question they had all longed to ask. 'Whatever the justice of our cause.'
Herra shook her head and her voice was soft with pain. 'No. Nothing is yet certain about how this quest of ours will continue. It never has been. But remember the Great Prophecy. That's what always comforts me.'
The faces around her brightened immediately and several voices said the words aloud: Then Sunrise shall awake with joy
To banish Serpent dire
'So,' said Quedras, who never allowed himself to doubt anything, 'we shall continue to train rrigorously, and I, for one, shall continue to believe that we shall prrevail, for that's what I mean to do.'
'Rright, Queddie!' declared Querilla. 'That's the way to talk.'
He nudged her to be quiet. 'And in the meantime, some of us will go to see these terraces of yours.'
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Katia and Davred walked away from the meeting together, hands enlaced. Their two younger children had been sent away from Northwoods with all the other youngsters, to the farthest settlement they could reach with this strange barrier preventing people from going too far. Although Katia and Davred were missing Rendor and Sharilla greatly, they couldn’t help enjoying each other's uninterrupted company.
As they passed a corner of the meadow, they heard voices raised in a quarrel from behind a clump of bushes and stopped walking.
'Not Petur and Taslyn again,'
Davred groaned. 'I never heard such a couple for quarrelling.'
'Hardly a couple. They show no signs of loving one another. But Quedras and Querilla have their moments, too.' She grinned. The quarrels of the two leaders of the Sandrims group were now legend in the High Alder.
He shook his head. 'With Quedras and Querilla, it's just letting off steam. They can be quarrelling one minute and making love the next. For they do love one another. No one can doubt that. But Petur and Taslyn seem to hate one another. I can't see how the prophecy can possibly link the two of them as "twin destinies".'
'Herra says they’ll settle down. And in spite of their differences, it's quite astounding how they can amplify other people's skills when they work together.'
He gave a scornful snort. ' If you can get them to work together - which isn’t often.'
They both looked at the nearest corner of the town meadow. The young man and woman standing there facing one another with hands on their hips were each tall, he with his golden curls tousled and tied back roughly with a leather thong, she with a long mane of thick hair tied back in a similar careless way, hair that seemed dark, but had an underlying gleam of deep red in the sunlight. Herra said Taslyn's mother had had hair just the same colour. It ran in the family. 'A very Gifted Line,' Herra always added.
Katia sighed. 'What's the matter with the two of them now?'
'Who cares? We've got a rare hour free and I thought we'd - '
But Katia shook her head, let go of his hand and walked across to the meadow. 'What is all this shouting?' she demanded, her voice low but with an edge to it that stopped the quarrel dead. There was something about Katia nowadays that made folk do her bidding without question, an air of severity if something offended her, an increasing air of imperiousness, too.
Cheral had once told Davred that all Elder Sisters developed that air. It was one of the easiest ways to tell who was destined to become an Elder Sister.
'You're sure, then, that Katia will become one?' he had queried.
'Oh, yes.' Cheral had watched him for a moment, then said, 'You have the same air about you, Davred.'
He still remembered gaping at her. 'Me?'
She’d just stared at him with that flat utter certainty she was right which was typical of the more experienced Sisters. 'Do you think, Lord Davred, Manifestation of our Brother the God, that you will just fade away after the Serpent is defeated? Or perhaps you want to leave Sunrise?'
'Never!'
He still wondered, though, how he’d fit in after the war, what he’d do to help the Kindred rebuild the Twelve Claims. So much destruction, so much pain. How hard it would be to rectify the wrongs and teach people to use their freedom wisely.
At that moment, standing listening to Katia's quiet rebuke to Petur and Taslyn, it suddenly came to him clearly what his own main task would be: he would be the one to liaise with Those of the Confederation. He would be the one to protect the planet from the Confederation and guide its people through the necessary negotiations. For it was unthinkable that Confex should be allowed to control this planet, to open it to all and sundry, unthinkable that they could accord Sunrise anything but Free Status, with the right to govern itself as it chose and the right to admit whom they pleased to their world - which included the right to deny access to Sunrise, as well.
A wry smile chased across his face. Of course Confex would argue that the Kindred only ruled - he frowned, for that word jarred on him - guided, he amended, only guided the Twelve Claims. But if Those of the Confederation tried to land elsewhere or take over the other continents on this most anomalous of planets, they’d have great difficulty. For Dsheresh, the land of the deleff, moved in and out of alignment with the rest of the planet, and the Tanglewoods could defend themselves against any comer.
Another thought drifted in to his mind: no one really knew anything at all about the third continent, though the Confex team had mapped it with great care, just as they’d mapped the Dsheresh that didn't really exist. But having seen the reality and strangeness of the land of the deleff, he would now wager his very life that the third continent also hid surprises beneath its cloud-covered rocky surface. From above it looked as barren as Dsheresh. The Confex team had found meteorological and geographical reasons for that cloud cover, of course but he didn’t feel it was normal for anywhere to be so constantly veiled from sight and now, thinking about it again, he was sure those clouds must be hiding more surprises.
He became aware that Katia had rejoined him and that in the meadow two young people were standing stiffly, watching her, united now in resentment at her scolding.
Katia turned round to stare back at them. 'Have you not begun?' she snapped.
The two of them sighed in unison, placed hands lightly on each other's shoulders and concentrated on practising using their powers together. Next to them, images flickered into existence and faded out again, clouds and moisture formed in a small patch of air and a gentle rain descended. Afterwards a small bush grew from a chance seed, flowered and bore its fruits, all within minutes. When those two could be brought to work together, their powers were incredibly strong. Yet alone, neither of them had exceptional powers. It was as if they were two halves of a whole, incomplete without one another.
Cheral said nothing like that had been known before. 'New Gifts for desperate times,' she had added grimly.
But in spite of all people tried to do to bring them together, Petur, who still sometimes seemed tainted with the ways of the Serpent, complained loudly about being forever paired with a stupid girl who always wanted her own way. And Taslyn complained about being forced to spend so much time with an ill-mannered lout, who didn't appreciate what had been done for him by the Kindred, when there were other lads who were much more fun to be with. Lads who didn't go into the sulks for no reason. Lads who knew how to laugh and enjoy themselves with a girl.
But on this point Herra was unusually strict. Neither Petur nor Taslyn would be allowed even to flirt lightly with others of their own age. They were destined to marry, she still insisted, impossible as that seemed to everyone at the moment. And as they clearly worked best together, they would stay together, living in the same hut in the same domain, under the tuition of the same tutors and mentors.
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Their own wishes wouldn’t be listened to until Those of the Serpent were defeated.
'Then perhaps,' she always ended, 'we shall have time to deal properly with your selfishness.'
***
A few days later Katia and Kensin led the way through the high reaches. She kept sniffing in appreciation the scent of the many-crested resin pines which only grew up here, and watching from the corner of her eye how much her grandfather was enjoying the excursion, too.
He really was an amazing man. He was nearing ninety now and yet he seemed as hale and hearty as a man half his age, in a lean, fine-boned way. His silver hair was as luxuriant as ever, his eyes alive with intelligence and enjoyment of life, and Quinna made no secret of the fact that he still had the ability to please a woman. The two of them were a strange couple, but they seemed happy enough together, and Katia was so glad that Quinna had ended his long loneliness.
The twins fathered by Benjan had been born soon after their arrival in Northwoods. They now lived with their mother and Kensin, as did the squad of young orphans the two of them had fostered in the Sandrims fashion. Quinna had borne no children since then, which was, she said, a good thing, because those two lads of hers were enough for anyone.
Her sons Vin and Toomat were a pair of massive young men. At twelve, they were taller than most grown men and closely resembled their birth father, with the same heavy features and deep-set eyes.
Fortunately, relations were very amicable between Quinna and Kensin, Benjan and Carryn, so the boys knew both parents well. But then, most people in Northwoods lived in harmony with one another. It always surprised the newcomers how little discord of any sort they found there.
By Kensin's si
de Nim paced, irritated as usual by the slowness of her humans. It was a pity, Katia, often thought, that poor old Nim had never found a mate. But perhaps there was still time to take her back to the Sandrims and let her search for a male. Although they didn’t know how long cliff cats lived, Nim showed no signs of ageing. Every now and then as they trekked along, she left them to chase something through the woods, returning a couple of times licking her lips and looking very satisfied with herself. It took a lot of meat to keep her in such good condition.
It was nearly dusk on the second day when they arrived at the Hapslith Terraces, great stretches of scrubland which looked as if they had been artificially carved out of the side of the hill behind them.
'That rock formation isn't possible naturally,' Davred muttered.
'Who cares? It’s a good place to fight,' Quedras approved, pacing to and fro. 'At least it is if you're the one uphill of your enemy. But there's too much vegetation.'
Kensin considered it, head on one side. 'We could burn it off. There's been no rain lately. It should catch fire quite easily.'
'Good idea. Then we'll see if we can persuade a few of the deleff to trample down what's left.'
Kensin nodded. 'I'll bring some of the younger folk back with me and we'll do the thing properly.
It'll teach them the lie of the land as we clear up, too.'
'What excuse will you give for it?'
Kensin considered. 'Future vine-growing. The terraces face the right way. They'll catch the morning sunlight. There are some strains of wine-berries which grow wild up here. I've always wanted to try them out properly.' He sighed and added wistfully, 'Perhaps one day we might really be able to use these terraces for peaceful purposes.'
Benjan nodded slowly in agreement and then narrowed his eyes as he stared up at the top of the four terraces. 'Someone's camping up there. If I'm not mistaken, it's my kithanfolk from the Hashite Guild waiting for us.'
'Stupid place to make camp when you're not expecting a fight,' Kensin scoffed. 'The water is down here.'