Part 11 (2/2)
”To make you see reason, Old Man. Give her over to me now and I will make sure that she receives the fate she deserves. Humankind are not fit for an alliance with us. They will never trust us, nor any person tainted by kins.h.i.+p to us.”
”Harsh words,” mused Eldest Uncle as Liath -kept Cat Mask fixed in her sight while the arrow's point burned cheerfully.” Is it better to waste away here? Do you believe that your plans and plots will succeed even if nothing hinders our return? Have we numbers enough to defeat humankind and their allies, now that they are many and we are few?”
”They fight among themselves. As long as they remain divided, we can defeat them.”
”Will they still quarrel among themselves when faced with our armies? Do not forget how much they hated us before.”
”They will always hate us!” But even as he said those words, he glanced again at Liath. She knew the expression of men who felt desire; she had seen it often enough to recognize it here. Cat Mask struggled with unspoken words, or maybe with disgust at his own susceptibility. Like Sanglant, he had the look of a man who knows how to fight and will do so. He was barely as tall as Liath but easily as broad across the shoulders as Sanglant, giving him a powerful, impressive posture.” And we will always hate them!”
His expression caught in her heart, in that place where Hugh still presided with his beautiful face and implacable grip.
”Hate makes you weak.” Her words startled him enough that he met her gaze squarely for the first time.” Hate is like a whirlpool, because in the end it drags you under.” With each word, she saw more clearly the knots that bound her to Hugh, fastened first by him, certainly, but pulled tighter by her.” That which you allow yourself to hate has power over you. How can you be sure that all humankind hates your people still? How can you be sure that an envoy offering peace won't be listened to?”
He snarled.” You can never understand what we suffered.”
The flame at the tip of the arrow flickered down and snapped out, leaving the iron point glowing with heat. With deliberate slowness, to make it a challenge, she lowered the bow.” You don't know what I can or cannot understand. You are not the only one who has suffered.”
”Ask those who are dead if they want peace with humankind. How can we trust the ones who did this to us?”
”The ones who did this to you died so long ago that most people believe you are only a story told to children at bedtime.”
He laughed, not kindly, and took a step forward.” You are clever with words, Bright One. But I will still have your blood to make my people strong.”
Resolve made her bold and maybe reckless as she gestured toward the heavens with Seeker of Hearts.” Catch me if you can, Cat Mask. Will you walk the spheres at my heels, or do you prefer to face me after I have returned from the halls of power, having learned the secret language of the stars?”
Cat Mask hissed in surprise, or disapproval. Or maybe even fear.
Eldest Uncle set down his spear with a thump.” So be it.” He raised the spear and shook it so the bells rattled, as though to close the circle and end the conversation.” Go,” he said to Cat Mask. It was a measure of the respect granted him as the last survivor, the only As.h.i.+oi who had seen the great cataclysm personally, that when he spoke a single command, a warrior as bold as Cat Mask obeyed instantly.
They watched him jog away down the length of the avenue. When he was distant enough that he posed no immediate threat, Eldest Uncle set foot on the stairs. Liath followed, using her bow to steady herself as they climbed higher on those frighteningly narrow steps. She caught her breath at the broad platform that defined its height before they descended the other side and pa.s.sed into the mist, traversing the borderlands quickly and emerging at the lonely tower.
The unnatural silence of the spa.r.s.e gra.s.sland, with its th.o.r.n.y shrubs and low-lying pale gra.s.ses, tore at her heart. Like a mute, the land could no longer speak in the many small voices common to Earth. The stillness oppressed her. Light made gold of the hillside as they waited up and over the height, bypa.s.sing the watch-tower. She was grateful to come in under the scant shade afforded by the pines. Even the-wind had died. Heat drenched them. A swipe of her hand along the back of her neck came away dripping.
She halted at the forest's edge, such as it was, breaking from pine forest into scrub and giving way precipitously to the hallucinatory splendor of the flowering meadow.
Under the shadow of the pines she slid her bow back into its case and let the spray of color ease her eyes. Eldest Uncle stood beside her without speaking or moving, beyond the thin whistle blown under his breath and an occasional tinkle of bells as he s.h.i.+fted the haft of his spear on the needle-strewn ground.
”How do I walk the spheres?” she asked finally, when Eldest Uncle seemed disinclined to move onward or to say anything at all.” Where do I find the path that will lead me there?”
”You have already walked it.” He gestured toward the flower trail that led down to the river.” Why do you think I bide here, out of all the places in our land? This place is like a spring, the last known to us, where water wells up from hidden roots. Here the land draws life from the universe beyond, because the River of Light that spans the heavens touches our Earth at this place.”
Wind stirred the flowers. Cornflowers bobbed on their high stalks, and irises nodded. The breeze murmured through crooked rows of lavender that cut a swathe of purple through tangles of dog roses and dense cl.u.s.ters of bright peonies. Marigolds edged the trail, so richly gold that sunlight might have been poured into them to give them color.
The view humbled her.” I thought you camped here because of the burning stone.” She gestured toward the river, and the clearing that lay beyond it, where she had first crossed into this land.
”There are many places within our land where a gateway may open at intervals we cannot predict. It is true that the clearing in which I wait and meditate is one of those. But it is this place that I guard.”
”Guard against what?”
”Go forward. You have walked this trail many times in these last days.”
Wind cooled the sweat on her forehead and made the flowers dance and sway in a delirious mob of colors. Why hesitate?
Reflexively, she checked her gear, all that she had brought with her, everything and the only things she now possessed: cloak and boots, tunic and leggings; a leather belt, small leather pouch, and sheathed eating knife; her good friend Lucian's sword; the gold torque that lay heavily at her throat; the gold feather that Eldest Uncle had once given to her, now bound to an arrow's haft; the griffin quiver full of strong iron-pointed arrows and her bow. Seeker of Hearts; the lapis lazuli ring through which Alain had offered her his protection. The water jar did not belong to her, so she set it down on the path. When she stepped forward, crossing from shadow into sun, the blast of the sun hit her so hard she staggered back, raising a hand to s.h.i.+eld herself.
Something wasn't right. Hadn't she learned more than this, even in her short time here in the country of the Aoi? Every spell, drawn out of an interaction with the hidden architecture of the universe, must be entered into correctly and departed from correctly, just as all things have a proper beginning and a proper ending.
By what means did a sorcerer ascend into the spheres? How could any person ascend into the heavens in bodily form, because the heavens were made up of aether, light, wind, and fire? Mortal substance was not meant to walk there.
Would she have to study many days and weeks and even months more, before she could walk the spheres and seek out her true power? Even if she ought to, she could not wait.
On Earth, days and weeks pa.s.sed with each breath she exhaled here in this country. In the world beyond, her child grew and her husband waited, Anne schemed and Hugh flourished and Hanna rode long distances at the mercy of forces greater than herself. What of the Lions who had befriended her? What of Alain, whom she had last seen staggering, half dead, through the ruins of a battlefield? Where was he now? How could she leave them struggling alone? How much longer would she make them wait for her?
In one day and one night, as measured in this country, Cat Mask and his warriors would come hunting her.
It was time for her to go.
Yet how did one reach the heavens?
With a ladder.
She shut her eyes. Wind curled in her hair like the brush of Da's fingers, stroking her to sleep. Ai, G.o.d, Da had taught her exactly what she needed, if she had only believed in him.
She knelt to set he”” palm against the earth. As she rested there for the s.p.a.ce of seven breaths, she let her mind empty, as Eldest Uncle had taught her. Dirt lay gritty against her skin. When she let her awareness empty far enough, she actually felt the pulse of the land through her hand, thin and fragile, worn to a thread. But it was still there. The land was still, barely, alive.
With a finger, she traced the Rose of Healing into the dirt, brus.h.i.+ng aside dried-up needles and desiccated splinters of pine bark so that the outline made a bold mark on the path. Heat rose from that outline, and she stood quickly to step over it and into the sunlight.
At first her voice sounded hesitant and weak, a frail reed against the ocean of silence that lay over the land.
”By this ladder the mage ascends: First to the Rose, whose CHILD or FLAME i touch is healing.” She took two more steps before bending to trace the next sigil into the dirt.” Then to the Sword, which grants us strength.”
Three steps she forged forward now, and either perhaps the heat had increased or maybe only the strong hammer of the sun was making her light-headed, because some strange disturbance had altered the air around her so that the air resisted her pa.s.sage as porridge might, poured down from the sky.
She crouched, and drew.” Third comes the Cup of Boundless Waters.”
When she straightened, the flowers flowing out from either side of the trail had taken on a s.h.i.+mmering, unearthly cast, as though they bloomed with something other than material substance. Poppies flared with impossible scarlet richness. Lilacs lay a tender violet blush over swaying green stalks, shading into the complicated aftertones seen at sunset, although the sun still rode high above her.
She pressed forward four steps as a hazy glamour rose off the path like mist. Through this soft fog she reached, searching for the ground at her feet. It was hard now to see the path beneath her, but the dirt felt the same. Into the cool soil she traced the next pattern.
”Fourth lies the blacksmith's Ring of Fire.”
Fog billowed up along the path, swirling around her knees as she took five steps forward. Ahead, through the hazy s.h.i.+mmer that now lay over the meadow, she saw the river. A figure stood on the far bank, caught in a moment of indecision among the rocks at the ford. Even from this distance, Liath recognized the stocky body and distinctive face of one of the As.h.i.+oi, but the woman was dressed so strangely, in human clothing, with human gear. She looked utterly out of place and yet entirely familiar as she gazed at the scene unfolding before her.
The fragrance of roses surrounded Liath, so dense it made her woozy.
Was it dizziness? Or was that As.h.i.+oi woman actually wearing Liath's other tunic, the one she had folded away into the saddlebags thrown over Resuelto's back just before she and Sanglant and the baby had tried to make their escape from Verna?
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