by Jean Lorrah
“The Warimu? Norgu’s people?”
“Norgu is not Warimu, nor was his father.”
“More Zionae,” Wulfston realized. “Well, that makes sense. With Z’Nelia ruling the Zionae, or earlier if her parents were as powerful as she is, any Zionae Adepts- Movers-who wanted to rule would find it easier to conquer another tribe than fight someone like Z’Nelia. But Princess Tadisha, I don’t want Norgu’s lands, either.”
“He will think you do, just as everyone in the Assembly does.”
“Why?”
“Because you and Norgu, are so obviously related.”
“Just because we’re both of Zionae ancestry?”
“Didn’t you see it?” she asked in astonishment. “It goes far beyond tribal characteristics. You and Norgu have a strong family resemblance.”
“I don’t look anything like Norgu!” Wulfston protested, recalling the flabby, overweight boy with round face and unpleasantly pouting features. “Besides, Barak would have known, if he knows everything about people when he meets them.”
“Barak knows of you only what has happened in your lifetime, unless you tell him stories of your family.”
“I see, ” said Wulfston. “And if I had such stories, and believed them to be true-”
“-he would perceive them as true, as he did the story he was told of your prowess.”
“Then a Grioka may be wrong.”
“About stories and songs, yes. Never about direct experience,” Tadisha explained. “The gods give the Griokae that gift, and the ability to make hearers experience what they tell. In return, the gods give them the obligation of recording our history, and passing it from one generation to another.
“Griokae are very wise,” she continued, “and highly respected. If we Karili offended Barak by chiding him for his mistake about you, he might refuse to tell stories of us. He would not teach them to other Griokae. Eventually, the memory of the Karili would be gone from the history of Africa, as if we had never been.”
Wulfston saw in Tadisha’s green eyes how very important it was to her that her people be remembered.
“What if,” he suggested, “Barak would not tell the story of Z’Nelia’s defeat of the Savishnon before today, because she offended him, and he did not want her victory remembered?”
Her expression told him much. “That is a Grioka’s only weapon against so powerful a Mover, but it is a mighty weapon indeed.”
“So,” said Wulfston, “the history of a person is that important here-so much so that because I do not know the history of my family you try to create one, by seeing a resemblance to Norgu?”
“I’m not the only one who saw it. When you first entered the Assembly, and again later, when you and Norgu stood side by side. You could be his brother, Lord Wulfston. You are certainly an uncle or cousin in some degree.”
“Impossible.”
To Wulfston’s annoyance, laughter twinkled in Tadisha’s eyes. “Are you that vain, then? I agree; Norgu makes himself unattractive with his overindulgence in food and his sneers and pouting. But let him harden his body with work, and gain maturity and character in his face, and one day he might be as handsome as you are.”
Wulfston did not like that topic of conversation, or Tadisha’s attempt to turn it to a joke. “Never mind Norgu’s appearance. Why did he lie to me about Lenardo?”
“A childish fit of anger when the Assembly would not bow to his will?” Tadisha suggested.
“From someone who has been ruling his own lands for a year?” Wulfston asked. “That may have been part of it, but he could not survive many impulsive acts, considering the enemies he has.”
“Perhaps he hoped you would leave if you thought your friend beyond your help.”
“No… put yourself in Norgu’s place, Princess Tadisha. Did you notice his reaction as he relived his father’s death? There was no grief! He almost… reveled in the bloodshed.” He looked into her eyes, trying to open to her Reading so that she would know he spoke truly. “I have seen such cases in my own land, among young people who have lost their families in the violence of Adept warfare. Their minds cannot cope with such grief. Their emotions become twisted. Norgu is very dangerous. There is no predicting how someone like that will react.”
She nodded. “He will see you as a threat, especially if he recognizes that you are of his family. He must think you have come to take his throne. While I can See that you would indeed go home this day if he reunited you with your brother, Norgu probably fears that the two of you together would turn on him.”
“I suspect,” Wulfston said slowly, “that he is even more manipulative than that. He wants me to think that Lenardo is dead so that I will take revenge on his supposed murderer. Revenge Norgu understands.
Remember his pleasure in destroying his fathers attackers? But someone sent those killers, and Norgu has not yet had revenge on that someone.”
Tadishas green eyes showed grim understanding. “We Karili are too close to Norgu. We see him as a spoiled child, but he has developed a dangerous cunning. He told you Z’Nelia killed Lenardo. He must think Z’Nelia sent the men who murdered Matu-and of course he could be right.”
Tadisha paused abruptly, staring at him. “I just realized that you never- Lord Wulfston, I do not think I have ever met a man before-at least not a man of such powers- whose first thought would not be of revenge.” She lowered her eyes, suddenly closed to Reading. “Wise men would then put the thought from their minds, knowing revenge only brings more revenge. But what kind of man does not even consider it?”
“One who has witnessed a lifetime of war, and wants no more of it,” he replied. “If Lenardo were truly dead, how would it help his people or his wife and children for me to risk my life in revenge? Those who counsel war would say if I did not kill Z’Nelia she would decide that I was weak, and soon she would come to the Savage Empire to depose me. But how likely is that, when she has her own battles right here?”
“That is true,” agreed Tadisha.
“If, however, I challenged her, provoked her, either she would kill me now, leaving my sister without my help, or if I succeeded in killing or otherwise defeating her, her heirs would then seek revenge on me, perpetuating an enmity I never wanted in the first place.”
Tadisha asked, “Where you come from, do you stand alone in these ideas?”
“No. One ruler cannot end the cycle of revenge; other lords would simply kill him and continue warring, the history of the Savage Lands before this generation. Our alliance is a precarious thing, which must be nurtured for the future. Were Lenardo dead, my first duty would be to go home and help to preserve it.
As it is, my first duty is to rescue my brother. Will your Assembly allow me to address them?”
“I think so. Come, then, and I will present your petition.”
Wulfston was, indeed, allowed to present his offer to aid the Karili against the Savishnon, in return for their help, first in locating his missing friends and the Night Queen crew, and then in retrieving Lenardo from Norgu.
“How much help can you be to us?” challenged Kamas.
“If you had not drugged me,” Wulfston replied, “I could demonstrate my powers. Let me explain it this way: undrugged and rested, I can do all that you saw Norgu’s father do in the vision Barak provided-and more. I also have many years’ experience at teaching people with minor powers to use them to best advantage… and to unite them to overcome someone of greater power. If all of you were to work together, as the Movers and Seers of my homeland do, even a Mover of Z’Nelias powers would be helpless against you.”
“Would you then set yourself up as our leader?” Ashuru questioned in acid tones.
“Not at all, Queen Ashuru,” he replied, wondering why she was suddenly hostile again. “You are the leaders of your people; they will not follow a stranger. Nor do I know your terrain, your languages, your customs. As soon as the threat to you is over, and I am reunited with my brother and the people we are responsible for, I will le
ave Africa.”
Finally Wulfston was dismissed, while the Assembly debated accepting his offer. One of the burly guards appeared again, but this time the man bowed, led Wulfston up a different flight of steps than those to his room, and left him in a kind of study or library, reminiscent of the one Aradia had lost when Castle Nerius was destroyed.
He found books, scrolls, and even clay tablets with writing that looked like pictures of birds and animals.
A little investigation turned up several in the Aventine language, and even a few in the savage dialects.
Those, however, could tell him nothing he did not already know, while the rest he could not read. For once he wished he had Aradia’s talent for languages.
Impatiently, he sat down in a comfortable chair before a large table. He wanted to Read what was going on in the Assembly, but was certain Seers would be on guard for such spying. He wished he had Lenardo’s powers, to reach out and tell his friend this would be a good time to converse. Lenardo hadn’t mentioned Zanos, Astra, or the others, but surely his Reading powers could find them!
Thinking of Lenardo’s powers, though, reminded him of his own, as did his growing hunger. How much of that drug had worked its way out of his blood by now?
He glanced at a candle on the table and casually willed it to light. Nothing happened.
He frowned, wondering why his Reading seemed to be progressing nicely, when he could not seem to use even the simplest Adept power. Probably the vegetarian diet Ashuru had kept him on since his capture. He certainly hoped they would provide him with meat now that he was no longer a prisoner!
He concentrated on the candle as he had as a small boy, just learning to use his powers. To his relief, the flame sputtered to life. He resisted the temptation to start moving furniture, but settled back in the chair and set his concentration to drawing healing fire into his blood, purging away the last of the drug. He could not produce the normal rapid flare of energy, but he could feel his healing powers working as he relaxed and let his body cure itself.
Finally the door opened, and Tadisha entered. Her face, and the fact that she was closed to Reading, told him her news was not good. Wulfston sat up, alert, as she took a chair opposite him at the table and said, “My mother does not trust you-and her voice influences the Assembly.”
“They won’t help me?”
The princess shook her head. “They don’t trust you because you are of Norgu’s family. Blood will tell.”
“I don’t accept that,” Wulfston told her. “Blood makes me look as I do, and gives me my powers, but how a person thinks and acts is determined by circumstances, and by family. And family often has nothing to do with blood. Neither Norgu nor any of his family shaped my thinking, Princess Tadisha.”
“So said Barak. He told of the people you call family, all of them white. None of them taught you to be a Seer,” she added. “Lord Wulfston, I recognized that your Mover’s powers were far superior to your Seer’s, but Lord Lenardo was astonished that you could See at all.”
“It’s true,” Wulfston admitted. “I was unable to access my Seeing ability until I came to Africa. It was as if the life of the great plain spoke to me, and I responded as if…1 had come home.”
“Blood will tell,” insisted Tadisha. “Your ancestors came from the plains. The Zionae lived there for many generations, until the Savishnon caused them to flee to the east. Many tribes hunt there, but it is a dangerous hunt today, for the Savishnon claim that territory, and massacre anyone they find trespassing.”
“Tell me more about the Savishnon,” said Wulfston.
“They come from the far north of Africa, and worship the war god Savishna. They believe their god has instructed them to conquer the entire continent. A generation ago they swept southward, onto the great plain,” Tadisha explained. “Soon they took over the northern areas of the plains, driving the tribes who lived there into exile.
“Five years ago they began a new offensive, with an army so huge none could count it. When my father, Kagele, was killed, my mother persuaded the leaders of other tribes to join us against the attackers. The Assembly was formed. The Savishnon did not expect unity from our many small tribes. We drove them back beyond the great lake.
“We knew, though, that they would be back. We built this castle, and fortified it strongly. Leaders of the tribes set up communications via Seers throughout all the lands now united with the Karili, and granted my mother the right to call them together in any emergency.”
“But the attack never came,” said Wulfston.
“How do you know?” Tadisha asked.
“I grew up in a castle that bore the scars of Adept warfare. There are none here-everything is new, perfectly matched.”
“You are right,” said Tadisha. “A year after we repelled the Savishnon, they regrouped and attacked Johara. You saw today what happened there. For the past four years no more than scattered remnants of the Savishnon have been seen.”
Wulfston asked, “Do the Savishnon wear headbands?
Symbols on their foreheads in beads? I thought I saw some at their camp.”
“Yes, whenever they go into battle.”
“Then it was Savishnon who attacked me on the beach.”
Tadisha nodded. “That is what we have come to expect the Savishnon to be: a constant annoyance, but no longer a threat to our way of life. We had hoped to rid all Karili lands of them.”
“And now they are back as a well-organized army.”
“One surprise after another,” the princess agreed. “You are as great a surprise, if not so certain a threat.
How is it you know nothing of your African origins?”
That again. He might as well tell her the little he knew. “I was only three years old when my parents died.
I remember my mother telling me stories, but not the stories themselves. My father-my adopted father, Nerius- told me everything he knew about my family, but he knew only their history once they reached the Aventine Empire. They were proud citizens, Aventine to the core- which, now that I think about it, makes me wonder what they left behind that they were happy to work their way out of slavery, and apparently never pined for their homeland.”
“Perhaps,” said Tadisha, “you will discover the answer here in Africa.”
“Perhaps I will,” he agreed. “Torio told me I would find ‘where I first began.’ ‘
“Torio?”
“A Reader with the gift of prophecy.”
“Ah. My family has that gift also,” said Tadisha. “Prophecies always come true-in one way or another.”
“I know,” Wulfston said. “Torio said my fate was entangled with Lenardo’s, and here I am. But Tadisha, if the Karili won’t help me, then I must try to rescue Lenardo alone.”
“I think,” she said, her green eyes reflecting the candle flame, “there may be a way to persuade the Assembly, although my mother will be angry if I suggest it. She says aloud that she fears what your presence here may do to the precarious state of affairs in Africa. Privately, however, she is concerned that I have become too… impressed with you. Your ideas,” she amended hastily.
Wulfston could not help smiling. He was finding himself equally impressed with the Karili princess. “There is a way,” he said, “that you need not risk your mother’s displeasure. I am willing to go before your best Seers, and make no resistance to their powers. In my homeland, the process is known as the Oath of Truth, taken before a panel of Master Readers.”
But when they approached Ashuru, she waved the idea away. She was in consultation with Barak, and Wulfston found the scrutiny of the old Grioka almost palpable as the queen said, “I have little doubt of your motives, Lord Wulfston-as far as they go today. What concerns me is your effect on the history of my nation.”
At that Tadisha squared her shoulders. “Then, Mother, you know what we must do. What I must do.
When the fate of our people is in the balance-”
“It is too dangerous!” hissed Ashuru, with a s
cowl at Wulfston.
“Princess Tadisha, what do you propose to do?” he asked.
“Seek a Vision of the future,” she replied.
“You can produce prophecies on demand?” he asked in surprise. Lenardo’s flashes of precognition came without warning, as did Torio’s verbal predictions. Neither man could control the gift.
“It is a most exhausting procedure,” said Tadisha, “and does not always provide answers. However, with the Savishnon preparing to attack, Norgu refusing to help us, and your presence an unexpected factor, I must attempt it.” She looked at her mother as if defying her to produce a reason not to.
And Asburu did. “Tadisha, you would risk your life. Since the routing of the Savishnon at Johara, too many Seers who have left their bodies have never returned.”
“Only those who sought to See into the Dead Lands,” Tadisha protested.
“Not entirely,” said Barak. “I have heard tales of those being lost who merely sought to See at a great distance. Things are being Hidden, even from the Sight. Let beware any who trespass, even unintentionally, into areas that are Guarded.”
Ashuru stared at the Grioka. “Barak, am I correct that you were as surprised as the rest of us at the vision Norgu brought of the Savishnon gathering north of the great lake?”
“You are correct. No one had told of it in my presence before.”
“Yet Seers of all tribes have kept watch on the movements of the Savishnon. Until now.”
“If Savishnon Seers have ensnared other Seers trying to spy on them, how did Norgu do it?” Wulfston asked. “The way he uses his Mover’s powers, he can’t be much of a Seer.”
“I think,” Barak said reflectively, “that the Vision was not through Norgu. He Saw it through another Seer. Forgive me, it did not occur to me at the time to seek to know. When I am next in his presence, I will discover it.’
“What else do you not know, Barak-or have you withheld from us?” Ashuru asked.
“I do not know the future,” the Grioka replied with transcendent dignity.
The Karili queen stared at him. “Do you say I am wrong, Barak? Would you have Tadisha risk her life seeking this Vision?”