Part 3 (1/2)

”I won't for long.”

Evayne swallowed. ”If you do not carry this child to term, we stand no chance of winning this war.”

The silence. Oh, the silence.Of the two, it was Evayne who looked away, casting her gaze stoneward.”And if I do? If I do, can you tell me that we will win? Against a G.o.dV Her voice was thin and high and strained. But it was not mad, it was not hysterical.

Evayne started to speak, and Askeyia cried out, ”Look at me!” and the words died on the older woman's lips. ”No,” she said, the lie that was so distasteful defeated. ”I cannot say that with certainty. I can only say that she is hope, and she is our hope, as she is his.”

”She?”

”If you have this child, this child will be a girl. And she will be all that she was born to be.”

”How can you ask this?”

”Because, Askeyia, she will be his daughter, but she will be yours as well. It is only hope, yes.

But it is hope.””And for me?””I promise you that you will suffer no more in the birthing than many others suffer naturally.””And will I go home? Will I be free?”Evayne rose, and in rising, she took the weight of her answer with her, carrying it, burdened by it.

She saw the clouds rolling in to either side.

”No,” she whispered. ”Just as I will never be. I cannot force you, Askeyia, and I would not. But if a healer's vocation is to save lives, you will be the greatest healer the world has ever had, known or not.

”And I promise you, before the end, you will be known.”

She heard Askeyia begin to cry as the path closed in about her, taking her from the desperate young woman, and leaving her with the burden of what she had asked, of what she would ask.

She was Evayne a'Nolan.

II: ASHAF..

thofWittan,412AA.

The Terrean ofAverda, the Green Valley.

She would always remember that he came at the break of dawn. Not at full morning, when the serafs were out in the fields, sun burnis.h.i.+ng their forearms with color and the glow of sweat seen at a distance, but when the darkness had not yet been broken, and an old woman could take the time to sit beside the earthen shroud that lay over so many of her once-bright futures. It happened that way sometimes.

She lifted a goblet carefully, searched the still, dark surface of its liquid, and then spilled the contents, drop by careful drop, over the graves. The wine was almost finished for the season, and she'd little taste for it otherwise; it was folly to drink alone, a type of weakness that she'd sometimes longed for but never truly approached.

Harvest was around the corner; a day, maybe three, away. She'd seen enough of them to know that it would be a good year, Lord willing. The Tor'agar would be pleased.

Ashaf kep'Valente had much to be thankful for. She served a Tor who was just, if at times harsh; she had her health, her sight, her teeth, and the kind of strength that years of labor cannot destroy. Not labor.

But other things hurt, and over time it became harder and harder to ignore them. She was tired. The Lady knew it, if no one else did. She wanted to see her children again, and there was only one way she could ever do it. One way.

”Ashaf kep'Valente.”

She looked up from the Lady's blessing, although the sun had not yet robbed the sky of all its hidden shadows, its quiet darkness. And she saw him for the first time.

He was neither young nor handsome as Ashaf reckoned either, but in his face she saw the conjunction of cool distance and absolute certainty that spoke of power. He did wear a fine and heavy cloak, out of season in the Averdan summer. It was the colors of harvest, gold and green and brown-but it felt black to her, and that was unsettling.

Had they a new Tor? It would not be the first time she had found out this way. But it would be the worst, and it would be painful; this Tor was a good man, a known one.

This stranger, she thought, although she did not know why, would be neither. Ah, age and family made a coward of a woman. Bow and sc.r.a.pe and beg and give way, if it kept you alive for your family.

But she had no family now.

Her eyes fell at once to his collar, his breast, but he wore no sun with rays to mark his importance among the clansman.

”No,” he said quietly, ”I am no Tor or Tyr; if you bow to me here, it is at the desire of your courtesy, no more.”

”And have you come to find the Tor, then?” She rose, standing implacably between this stranger and those graves, as if by putting herself there she could guard her heart. As if she knew, even then, that it was necessary.

”No,” he said quietly. ”Your Tor has little of interest to offer me.” He paused. ”You are not a very curious woman, are you?”

She shrugged, wondering if she had time to raise a shout and call the men from the field. Wondering, in truth, if it was worth the effort. Perhaps the Lady heard her prayers, and if this was not the method she would have chosen to end her time and toil, one couldn't argue with the Lady. Sometimes the answers to your prayers were answers, like them or no, and once asked, very little could be taken back.

When he saw that she wasn't about to tender an answer, he smiled, the expression shrouded and somehow dangerous, although she thought he meant it to be friendly. She would learn the error of that, and many things, in time. ”I was right,” he told her. ”The Averdans are different. Ashaf kep'Valente, I have come to purchase your service.”

”Then you do want to speak with the Tor,” she said firmly, thinking that he would take her from this place, these tangible, buried memories, and not much liking it.

”Perhaps. Perhaps not. You are the first woman I have met that I think suitable for my needs. But I will not take your service if it is offered unwillingly.”

At that, the daylight broke; the Lady's time pa.s.sed. Ashaf kep'Valente snorted and settled into things practical. ”You aren't from the Dominion,” she said boldly, ”if you think that service and willing are one and the same. You buy me, I work. You don't, I work.” She shrugged. ”But it's not up to me to jump through your hoops either way. You talk to the Tor, and if he's willing, he'll give me the orders.” She straightened her shoulders, first left, then right, and wiped dew-moistened hands on her ap.r.o.n, knowing what answer the Tor would tender. Or believing that she did. ”Now, I've work to be about.”

”Indeed. As have I.”

But his eyes were the darkest brown she had ever seen as he caught, and held, her gaze. ”I think we will speak, you and I,” he said, and for a moment she felt like a young woman again. And she hadn't much liked being young, with no freedom, and choices that were so painfully few. Age had its precious value.

He came that evening, again at the bridge between darkness and light; dusk. Ashaf was not surprised to hear the knock at the sliding door of her one-room home. Her husband had built it, with the Tor's permission, when they'd birthed their third live child. He was proud, said the Tor, of their fecundity; he hoped that their children would serve the clan as well as their parents had.

Oh, her husband had been so proud of the praise offered. And proud, too, of the fact that he could live, almost like a poor clansman, in a home of his own. Perhaps it was his hubris that angered the Lord above, although it had not angered the Tor. She would never know.

You are maudlin, she told herself. The Lady's night is going to be a long one. She rose, took the steps necessary to reach the screen. There, silhouetted against the darkness, she saw him for the second time. No face, no clothing, no voice-but she knew him by the shadows his lamp cast against the opaque cloth. She hesitated a moment, wondering whether to feign sleep, and knowing at the same time that he had heard her quiet shuffle to this entranceway.

She opened the screen.

”Ashaf kep'Valente,” he said, and he bowed. He held a lamp that was burning brightly, some reminder of the Lord's power in the Lady's night. But she thought that he held it for her benefit, and not his own, for his eyes were the color of starless night.

She had always been taught that the golden-eyed pretenders were the demon changelings born to earth, but she felt at this moment that gold was life and night was death; the echoes of the Leonne wars.

And she was sun-scorched if she was going to let this man intimidate her in her own home, this one remaining artifact of her past life. ”I don't believe 1 know you,” she told him stiffly. ”And strangers don't cross this threshold.”