by Lou Hoffmann
Regardless, he’d put a plan in motion to deal with the hostility toward Luccan and the unrest at the Sisterhold, and now all he had to do was call the people together who’d agreed to help—or at least those who were still there. He met with them early that second afternoon of his tenure as the guy in charge and learned much.
Old Alahn Kahrry had come with his grandson, Jaydehn, and he made a succinct report—making counsel available on a regular basis had indeed helped defuse some of the situations that had threatened to be explosive, and peace had been restored. People appreciated the promise of a listening ear from the Suth Chiell or his representatives, to the extent possible, whenever needed, but to date differences had been settled locally without needing to appeal to those governing the Hold. The others present seconded that information, saying they’d had similar success. However, all involved noted that as soon as one matter was settled, at least one more argument or accusation cropped up, and it was becoming difficult to keep up. About that, Alahn made a keen observation.
“Gossip and rumors are at the heart of it, I’d say, lad. Ye’ve got someone stirring the pot, and as for m’self, I can never determine where the seed got sowed.”
The others all nodded and murmured agreement, and Han sat quiet for a moment, scratching his chin—in a half-conscious imitation of Thurlock—to help him think. A moment’s reflection led to one conclusion. Whoever actually was sowing the discord among neighbors, he would bet money and more that the ultimate source started with M and ended with ahros—or perhaps whoever was behind Mahros’s move from resentment to open rebellion.
Maybe if I have Tennehk make sure he keeps Mahros on his toes, bother him just a little but not enough to keep them from revealing his greater purpose, he’ll keep his people too busy with other things and take his hand off the people’s necks. It’s worth a try, anyway….
“Okay,” he said. “I think I have an idea of how to interfere with that sabotage, and I’ll give it a try. Meanwhile, please keep at it as much as you can. Your help is vital, and I can’t thank you enough. I did tell Cook to count you all in for lunch, though. I know some of you traveled a ways to be here this morning. Can we plan to meet again in, say, a week?”
He wasn’t much of one for gatherings and social mingling, but he forced himself to dine with the group, whom he’d dubbed in his mind “the bicker-stoppers,” because he knew it went a long way toward creating unity. Afterward, he got busy with the business he was best at—military matters.
He had enough experience of life to tell him that no time of trouble such as the Sunlands was now experiencing was likely to end peacefully. With great luck, they might not have war, but it would be foolish to blindly trust to that slim chance.
“Si vis pacem, para bellum,” he whispered.
An Earthborn, a Roman named Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus had written those words a long time ago, and Han never forgot them after reading them while he was in Earth with Thurlock. It meant, “If you want peace, prepare for war,” and like the military truisms in the writings of Earthborn Sun Tzu—in The Art of War—and the premises of the Sunlands’ own Laws of the Sword, the simple sentence stated a large truth in a nutshell. Han didn’t think Renatus’s statement was true everywhere and always, though. Sometimes, building for war meant inviting attack. Still, he knew without a single doubt that when all the signs point to the need for a defense, it’s best to have one.
If he’d had any doubt that now was such a time, it vanished when he’d arrived home the night Thurlock left to find a copy of that very book of Renatus’s writings on his pillow with a bookmark at the relevant page. He’d smiled at the small gift, even though he understood the meaning of it was grim. It was one of the things Thurlock had always done for him through the long years they’d worked together: If they went separate ways for separate tasks, he gave Han something extra, something specific that he would need along the way. When he was to fight Isa’s thralls in Black Creek Ravine, it was flame arrows. This time, the gift wasn’t so much the book as it was the boost to Han’s confidence in his own mind.
Chapter Four: What Happened at Embers Falls
WHEN ZHEVI and the other soldiers of the Guard marched back into the Sisterhold on the fifth day after they’d left for Khalisehl, his heart was all over his sleeve. Burdened on the one hand by a terrible sadness over the dead children they’d found in the caves and the unknown fate of the many they hadn’t found at all, he had on the other hand two things to be joyful about and proud of. First, the goal of every military mission, they hadn’t had a single casualty—not even a broken bone. Nothing worse, in fact, than blisters from boots or sandals that hadn’t been properly broken in and a few burns from popping coals in the funeral fire. And they had children with them. Zhevi was so proud and happy about that he couldn’t help but smile, even when, part of the time, he was fighting tears over the ones who hadn’t made it.
Maizie had stayed with the children night and day since she helped find them. She’d been there for them to love, and she’d stayed by the side of those who were walking, encouraging them. She’d occasionally made her presence felt in front of the hooves of the officers’ horses, letting them know in no uncertain terms they must stop and let her charges rest. As children will, they’d responded to her love, and all of them slept in what might almost be called a dogpile, huddled around her at night just to be close. Zhevi had done everything he could for the children, but in their minds, Maizie was their savior. Rightly so, he thought as he watched her herd them toward the green near the manor house, where Rose, Shehrice, Han, Cook, Tahlina, Tennehk, and a few others had gathered to greet them and bring them into the fold of those the Sisterhold cared for.
The mission had been short, with a single objective and lasting only a couple days, so no great celebration greeted them. Still, Zhevi got smiles of approval and kind words from everyone he ran into. He should have been sharing the general good feeling, but as the hours passed, he instead became more and more melancholy.
The reason he felt blah was no mystery: L’Aria.
Once he’d done his part settling the horses, cleaning equipment, and the like, he—like most of the other soldiers—was sent home with thanks. Instead of going there, though, he searched out his uncle and superior officer, Lem.
“I’d like permission to look for L’Aria, sir.”
“Drop the ‘sir,’ boy. This is a family matter as long as it’s me you’re talking to. I have no objection—to be sure, I think it may be we should find the girl. But I’m goin’ to tell ye to take your request to the commander. Would you like me to go with ye?”
Zhevi wanted to say yes, in one way, but then again, he was asking to be trusted, and he also knew that as shorthanded as the Sisterhold was in general and the military in particular, Lem had a lot to see to and not enough time for it. So he thanked his uncle, but said no, and went to the military offices to find Han. To his surprise, Han also insisted on making it a conversation between friends.
“I understand why you want to go, Zhevi. And to be honest, I don’t think you’ll have much trouble finding her. I can maybe tell you some places to try. She’s certainly with her father, and I know some of his places because Thurlock has made me go out to find him a time or two. But are you prepared for L’Aria to refuse to return with you? Because there’s a pretty good chance that’s what will happen—you know what she’s like.”
Zhevi sighed, then answered honestly. “I don’t know, Han. Maybe she won’t, and maybe I’m not. But I need to try. I… I’m being selfish, mostly, I guess. I’m having a hard time coping without her. But I also think we—the Sisterhold, the Sunlands—we’re going to need her magic. I don’t know why I think that—just a feeling.”
Han met his gaze but said nothing for a while. Finally he said, “You’re probably right. Okay, go. Take an extra mount. Swing back by here—I’ll fix a map up for you with a couple places you might want to check, and I’m also going to write out a message for Tiro that I’ll want you
to deliver. If you don’t find her and convince her to come back with you after three days, come back. Understood?”
“Three days?”
“Three days! And even though we’re talking about this as friends, remember that is an order.”
ZHEVI APPRECIATED Han’s map not only because it showed him some particular places to look, but because it gave him destinations to focus on instead of wandering aimlessly hoping to somehow cross paths with the girl he loved and her ever-mysterious father. And another boon: he wasn’t alone. Maizie had once again elected to keep him company—probably only because Luccan was still with Thurlock on the road, or maybe already in Nedhra City. But regardless of why she chose to follow him, he felt less lost and hopeless with the big yellow dog at his side. It made him wonder why more people in the Sunlands didn’t keep dogs. Oh, farmers had dogs to work at their sides, but keeping dogs simply as friends wasn’t common. Now that Zhevi knew what good companions they could be, he thought that was sad.
“Maybe it will catch on,” he said to Maizie as they sat by a small fire their first night out.
She wagged once and laid her chin on her paws in response.
“Well, now that they know you, I mean.” Zhevi laughed at himself, but then he realized she looked a little sad. “Are you missing Luccan, Maizie?”
She groaned and rolled over onto her side. Zhevi took that to mean yes.
“Well, we’re both lonely for someone we love, then. Here, I’ll scratch your belly. Maybe that will help you feel a little better. And I’ll bet by the time we get back, Luccan will be there too.”
The map Han had drawn directed him to three places that were likely spots to find Tiro, and finding Tiro was the best way to find L’Aria at the moment. The first likely spot, a sehldar grove where a spring bubbled up through a rock in the center of a pool, Zhevi had found late in the afternoon that first day. He’d driven the horses a little harder than he probably should have to get that far in a day, so after he found the place deserted, he’d almost decided to camp there for the night—under a ledge in the rock hill that, according to the map, housed a Portal. But he couldn’t get the horses to settle, and truthfully he didn’t like the feel of the place either. Beautiful, yes, but it felt cold, and he couldn’t shake the feeling something dark hovered near. Or perhaps it was something left over from some cold magic that had been there recently. Either way, it reminded him of Khalisehl, and it felt like something creepy clinging to his thoughts, so he walked the horses another mile up the road before making camp.
The next morning as he studied his map, he realized he needed to backtrack a few miles, cross the Kihrn, and follow the main channel upriver to get to River Mead.
“You’ll find a cabin there at the top of the meadow that borders the river,” Han had said. “It used to be the home of Tiro’s wife—L’Aria’s mother. Now it belongs to L’Aria, and Tiro takes care of it, but it stands empty unless L’Aria’s there spending time with her father. Truthfully, I don’t think they’ll be there. But it’s on the way to the most likely place, so you might as well check it out before you move on.”
As Zhevi moved back through the glade with the spring, he let the horses choose their route. To his surprise, though they stayed to the far side of the clearing—the side away from the cave—at first, at one point they followed Maizie’s lead and made a beeline toward the center where the spring fountained out of the rock. All the four-leggeds in his party insisted on drinking the water and even wanted to bathe their paws and hooves in the pool. Seeing how they loved the water, Zhevi drank directly from the freshet and immediately understood their behavior. The water was good—better than good. Restorative. Almost like Kindled Springs water. He drained his waterskins on the ground and refilled them with this better water. When he led the horses away, he thought they were smiling the same way he was.
He found the water level at the ford too low to use the barge anchored there, so he walked the horses across. Maizie had to swim much of the time, but the current wasn’t swift, and she was strong, so other than guiding her to the upstream side of the horses, just in case, he didn’t worry for her safety. The sun was out to warm the morning, so even wet clothes didn’t seem much of a burden, and for a while, Zhevi felt more than hopeful. He knew he’d find L’Aria—most likely at River Mead—and she’d want to come back to the Hold with him. Of course she would. All morning, nothing happened to straighten the smile he’d found at the spring that morning.
When he got to the Mead, he found no one there, but still his spirits stayed high. He cared for the horses, and then stretched a blanket out near the riverbank and shared his lunch of sausage and dried berries with Maizie. He still felt certain L’Aria would show up there, so he laid his head on his hands and closed his eyes against the bright sun, planning to wait. He didn’t plan on sleeping, but he did.
He woke to a chill breeze playing over his bare arms and a massive darkening cloud blocking the afternoon sun. He didn’t think the weather was a true threat, but the change had the effect of shaking him out of his delusions. He suddenly realized he’d been fooling himself, believing L’Aria would show up there at River Mead simply because that’s where he was waiting. And he’d wasted precious hours because of it.
Maizie pressed her nose to his knee, and once she had his attention made her way toward the cabin at the top of the hill. For one hopeful moment, Zhevi thought perhaps L’Aria was there, but as soon as he drew close enough to see how the windows stared blankly back at him, he knew it wasn’t so. He wasn’t sure how he could tell, but something about the place made it obvious nobody had been there for a while. Still, Maizie seemed keen to check it out, so he followed her up to the door and found it slightly ajar.
He knocked anyway, but when no answer came, he stepped into the sturdy one-room cabin. The ashes in both the fireplace and cooking range had been cold for so long they didn’t even smell like fire, and there was no food stored. The bed was layered with straw-stuffed ticks, but it was bare of blankets. The wardrobe was bare of clothes or personal items. No water—not even drops—in the pitcher and bowl on the washstand. He stepped through the back door ready to collect the horses and his things and move while there was still daylight, but when he entered the mud porch, a bright splash of color immediately caught his eye. A long, brightly embroidered scarf lay draped across the drying rack. Zhevi recognized it immediately as one L’Aria often used as a belt for the layers of colorful skirts she liked to wear.
He picked it up and held it to his nose, but he found only a trace of L’Aria’s soap-and-wild-things scent.
Maizie whined by his side, looking intently at the scarf.
“I know, girl. She’s been here, but it’s been a while. We’d best get on down the road and see if we can find her. We’ve only got one more day to find her and convince her to come home.”
HE FOUND the track Han had marked on the map; it ran northwesterly alongside Embers Creek, a tributary to the Kihrn. It took its name from Embers Falls, a cascade near its headwaters in the hills a little farther north in the Greenwood. The falls were situated in such a way that at sunrise and sunset, on clear days, the red rock over which the waters tumbled lit up like glowing coals. It was there at the Falls, Han had said, that Tiro had one of his more permanent homes—which could be entered only underwater behind the cataract.
“A human can get in,” he’d said, “though it’s a bit of a squeeze and you have to hold your breath longer than might be comfortable. It’s scary, to be honest. I have done it, but only when Tiro clearly invited me. I don’t recommend you try to go in—just wait outside on the bank near the falls. Tiro has what he calls ‘windows.’ He can see you, so if he and L’Aria are inside and they want you to know it, they’ll come out.”
Zhevi planned to make sure they wanted to see him, whatever that entailed. Ever more conscious of his limited time, he kept the horses moving at the fastest pace they could safely manage on the muddy track, which was slippery in places, overgrown or rock
y in others.
When he got there, the sun was balancing on the tops of the hills to the west, and Embers Falls had caught fire.
It was Zhevi’s first ever sight of it, and he was so amazed by the wonder of it that if it hadn’t been for Maizie’s insistently repeated whuf, he wouldn’t have noticed the dark-furred young otter who’d also been watching the spectacle of the sunset on Embers Creek.
Such a beautiful creature, he thought, but never did it cross his mind that this might be the girl he loved. L’Aria had never shifted. That she had not inherited the ability from her father was something widely accepted and pronounced whenever people talked of her or the prophecies they tied to her. But she slid into the water, dove, surfaced and slowly rolled, and when Zhevi saw what she held… no, what was embedded in her right forepaw, he gasped, so surprised he nearly choked on the intake of air.
Tiro’s stone—no mistaking it—shone with blazes of green and gold and red fire, reflecting the light of the sun and the glowing stones of the falls.
Zhevi dropped to his knees at the very edge of the bank, heedless of the sharp, bruising pebbles. “L’Aria,” he said, holding out both hands palm up, begging her in his mind. Come here. Be L’Aria. Be the girl I love!
Then, out from under the falls, a sleek, much larger otter shot into the water, swam near L’Aria, then surfaced in front of Zhevi and chattered a snarling warning, displaying a predator’s teeth and claws. Zhevi had never before felt any threat from Tiro, but now without a second thought he moved back away from the water. Ordinary otters can be dangerous when they or their families are threatened, but Tiro was far more than ordinary, and far scarier.
