He sighed and offered them a weary smile. "I have prayed often, when you nearly killed yourself with some grand deed in your childhood, that it might be the reason you were formed and no more would be required of you. I do pray now that this great healing will be your last heavy burden, and you will be free to live ordinary lives and find peace and happiness together."
Mrillis nodded thanks for the hope, but he thought of the sword that he and Ceera had both seen come from the bowl of stars. He would put the sword into someone's hand. The sword, and the dreadful need for the sword, were yet to come.
Chapter Three
The fourteen forgers of the Zygradon came together, for the first time since they had joined to form the bowl deep under the sea: Ceera, Mrillis, Nixtan, Loereen, Jeffyr, Liriel, Brictan, Nyessa, Ferrys, Treston, Aillon, Patros, Caerienne, and Ricken.
Endor rode with them, as the forgers of the Zygradon rejoined to escort the bowl of star-metal in a healing pilgrimage across the land. He said nothing about the betrothal and the plans for the ceremony to take place in the spring, and that worried Mrillis. With the way the Stronghold, and then only a day later Wynystrys, both buzzed joyfully with the news, it was impossible that Endor didn't know about the wedding.
Someone had to have told Endor before he arrived at the Stronghold; either someone who didn't know that he had been relentlessly, sometimes subtly, courting Ceera, or someone who knew and disliked him enough to want to cause him some pain. Why didn't Endor say something? Or perhaps he waited for Mrillis and Ceera, his two closest friends, to tell him?
Mrillis wondered if he and Ceera had ever truly been close to Endor.
Either way, by the time they had gathered up their supplies and the last of the original fourteen had joined them and the guard of Valors sent by the Warhawk, it was too late to say anything. The damage had been done. Mrillis silently called himself a coward for being relieved to simply let the confrontation slip by.
There was enough confrontation over other topics during the short journey to the first stricken village. Triska did not ride with Ceera. The last glimpse Mrillis had of Ceera's heir, the girl pouted and sulked like a child one-third her age. Endor waited an entire day after joining them on the road to ask why his younger sister wasn't with them.
"She is my heir," Ceera said. She concentrated on the mucky road ahead of them, as if she didn't trust her horse, specially bred for grace and intelligence, to stay on the road and not stumble in the gluey, thick surface. Mrillis wasn't fooled by her seeming lack of caring. He wondered if she had deceived Endor or if he simply chose not to pay attention.
"Exactly. Shouldn't she spend as much time with you, and with the bowl, as possible?" Endor shook his head, grinning, as if he found it amusing to have to ask at all.
"What good will that do?" Mrillis asked.
"All the good in the world." Endor laughed, as if Mrillis had deliberately said something ridiculous. "The more time she spends with the bowl, the sooner she'll get strong enough to see and touch it. What use is it being Queen of Snows if she can't see the bowl or use it? She won't be able to take your place if she doesn't grow into a bond with the bowl, will she?"
"Who told you that she had to grow into any kind of contact with the bowl?" Ceera asked quietly.
Endor had never learned that she was her most dangerous when she grew quiet and thoughtful. Mrillis held his breath and tried not to enjoy the coming confrontation too much. After all, Endor was his friend, no matter how distant he had grown since the forging of the bowl. Still, maybe they all needed an explosion to clear the air and make them comfortable with each other again.
"Well...no one told me. It simply stands to reason." Endor offered them that charming, crooked smile he had used for years to slide out of trouble caused by his mischief. It didn't work on Ceera.
"All those who helped to make the Zygradon are bound to it, from within our souls," Ceera said just as quietly. She studied the reins of her horse, clasped loosely in her hands, rather than looking at Endor. "To be bound to the bowl, Triska would have to bind her soul and heart and mind to it. I do not know if it could be done. Our imbrose is tied into it, as if it were part of our flesh." She sighed and closed her eyes, and for a moment Mrillis thought she would slide into sleep, right there in the saddle. He hoped she would. She had done the work of five women in the short time they had to launch this venture.
"What happens if someone bound to the bowl is killed?" Endor asked. "Will it damage the bowl?"
"I am unsure."
"You made the dratted thing, Ceera! Don't you have the sense to understand what came from your hands?"
"Sense?" Her head snapped up, her eyes opened, and they blazed. "We have done something that has never been done. Tell me, who would have been my teacher? The only one who can teach me is the bowl itself, and all the good and cruel things that might happen as time passes. Do not talk to me about sense until you have done something just as large, that could have killed us all just as easily as breathing."
Endor's face froze into that cool, emotionless mask Mrillis had seen him wear too often in the last year or two. Then, with an ease that sent a chill up Mrillis' back, Endor shrugged and laughed and apologized with his usual charm.
I'm almost disappointed. A temper tantrum would have done us all some good, Ceera thought to him as they rounded the last bend in the road and came around the thick wall of bushes and trees that had shielded the village from sight.
A team of Rey'kil rode with the forgers of the Zygradon to attend to the villagers who were not sick of the plagues, and to guard the health of the forgers when they were exhausted by the healing effort. If the Zygradon could heal at all. Today would be the test. The healers would also examine the sufferers and watch as the healing took place, to take understanding out to the World and heal those who might not be reached by the star-metal bowl in time.
With the soldiers and Valors the Warhawk had sent to guard the healers, it was a large, impressive, slow-moving company that rode into the first village that slushy, gray day. Nixtan and Jeffyr uncovered the Zygradon and brought it down from the cart used to transport it, while the people struggled out of their huts and barns to see this healing promised to them. Mrillis watched the people and breathed a prayer of thanks that most of them were still able to walk and come out on their own for healing. Those who couldn't walk had plenty of people to carry them.
Or else those who are worst off have already died, Ceera responded when he shared that observation with her. She ignored his grimace and his sigh.
Mrillis ached for the heavy burden she already carried, even before she touched these people. How much would it hurt her if Graddon's vision did not prove true, and the Zygradon could heal no one?
No. He refused to admit defeat. Especially not without evidence. The Zygradon hadn't been formed on a whim, any more than his birth and Ceera's had been accidents. Mrillis firmly believed that they had been born or formed or envisioned for a purpose. Even healing one child who might otherwise have died would justify everything they had done and suffered and learned.
An argument filtered through the assembling crowd of villagers. Before Ceera could turn to look in the direction of the disturbance, two Noveni soldiers pushed through the people, clearing an aisle to the back. An elderly man, his clothes damp with fever sweat and propped on two staffs, argued with a young woman clutching a blanket-wrapped toddler to her chest. They both staggered, startled, when the first soldier demanded to know their problem.
"It's clear enough," Mrillis said, recognizing the old man, his granddaughter, and great-grandchild. "Aybal wants the child to be healed first, and Daira is afraid he'll be left until last and won't be healed at all."
"You're far too clever, boy," old Aybal grumbled, but he looked more ashamed than angry. His granddaughter nodded, gulping like a grounded fish as she fought not to sob aloud, while tears streamed fresh down her cheeks.
"There is power enough in the Zygradon for many to be healed at once," C
eera said from behind Mrillis. He turned and saw her eyes had gone pale with mist. She stepped backwards and raised a hand, gesturing at the Zygradon. Though no one but the forgers could see it, everyone's eyes turned to that spot.
Light spilled out from the bowl, so bright Mrillis nearly had to cover his eyes. He saw light touch the faces of everyone there, and they all averted their gazes. Even some of those who had helped forge the bowl looked away.
"What is it?" Daira whispered, as the soldiers led her and her grandfather to the front. She clutched her whimpering toddler close, wrapping the blankets up higher around the boy's flushed face, as if blankets could shield anyone from the power of the Zygradon.
"Why do I feel as if we have breached a dam to get water for tea?" Mrillis murmured to Ceera.
"This is the power of the Estall, sent as a gift to be used against the forces of evil," Ceera whispered. Her voice spread through the village square, to echo off the huts and barns and the forest many bowshots away.
"But there's nothing there," Aybal said, his voice heavy with doubt.
"Nothing there?" Parvis, one of the first Valors discovered and trained, stepped up next to Mrillis. "I can't see it, but I can feel its power. Can't you see the light it gives off?"
"Yes...I can. But where is it coming from? There's just light. Coming from nowhere."
"Coming from everywhere," Ceera said, and her soft smile made Mrillis shiver. He felt a thrill of fear for her, wondering if staying so long in the mist of a Seeing and letting the power of the Threads flow through her would change her.
Please, Estall, not now. Not when we finally have a future.
"The Zygradon is the gathering place of all the power in the World," she continued. "Believe, and it will touch you and heal you. If you choose not to believe... I cannot promise even a taste of the blessing waiting to fall on you."
"How can I believe in what I don't see?" another man called from close to the front of the crowd.
"You don't see the wind, do you?" Mrillis said. "You can feel it, though, and see what it does. You can't see the Threads or our imbrose, but you know they're real because you can see what we do. Believe in the power of the Zygradon, granted by the Estall."
"Is it enough if we believe what you say?" Daira said. She held out her flushed, sweaty little boy. His once-chubby cheeks had been wasted by his illness. He looked like a little old man rather than the laughing, bold little toddler Mrillis had seen just after the first snows.
"The Estall blesses any faith, no matter how small. Seeds are small. Make sure your faith grows, like seeds," Ceera said. She raised her hands and streamers of multi-colored power spilled from the petal-like patterns of the Zygradon's sides. The streaks of colors wrapped around her fingertips and followed like trailing threads as she stretched out her hands and touched the boy with one hand, old Aybal with the other.
The old man let out a yelp and staggered backwards, into arms that barely reached out to catch him in time. Daira's arms opened and she nearly dropped the boy. Ceera stepped between them and walked through the crowd, touching everyone within reach. People staggered or went to their knees, some of them silently, others with cries that ranged from fear to shock to wonder.
"What's it doing?" Parvis whispered, stepping up behind Mrillis so close he could feel the Valor's breath on his ear.
"The power of the Zygradon is flowing through her like a water pipe."
"That's not water filling the air with rainbows. I'd call it fire, rather."
"What happens when the fire is too hot for the pipe carrying it?" Endor asked.
Mrillis turned, startled, and found his friend leaning against the cart, arms crossed on the side, staring at the spot that was like molten, glowing glass. All the colors that spun and swirled off of it lit Endor's face, turning it into a weird, inhuman mask.
Mrillis choked on a kind of terror that made him feel cold and light-headed. He followed the streamers of rainbow-streaked power through the thinning crowd, and found Ceera. She walked upright, no trembling, no sign that she felt anything unusual as she reached out again and again, bestowing healing power on the awestruck, bewildered people. Mrillis had a clear image in his mind of what would happen when that power stopped flowing, so he stayed with Ceera, arms ready to catch her.
"Is that everyone?" he asked, when she turned around and spread her arms wide, then let them fall to her sides. The last of the villagers moved away, some of them walking backwards, wonder and hope lighting their faces.
"Everyone who will come. There are others who need healing, but they fear too much or they have no hope." Ceera frowned and looked around as her eyes returned to normal. The flush left her cheeks and she lifted trembling hands to press her fingertips to her temples. "So...odd. I saw all of it, but I felt as if I watched someone else working through me. It wasn't a dream, was it?"
"No." Mrillis slid an arm around her waist, half-afraid to find she had been burned away by the flow of power, until she was nothing but mist.
"Good." Ceera smiled, closed her eyes, then her head tipped back and she collapsed, boneless.
* * * *
"Why do we keep learning the same lessons over and over?" Liriel asked, as Mrillis came back into the main tent set up for their party to use as a gathering place.
"What lesson?" he asked. He nodded thanks when Endor made room for him in the group gathered around the brazier full of coals.
"Just like we learned it's easier forging star-metal if we're all involved, rather than making Ceera do all the work," Nixtan said.
"Just like what?" He wondered if he were just tired, so it seemed like they were carrying on a conversation without including him.
"You're all bound to the Zygradon, right?" Endor said. He lifted a brass pitcher of steaming, spiced wine. When Mrillis nodded, he continued speaking and poured a cup for him. "Why do you have to be within seeing distance of it, to use the power? And why does Ceera have to be the only release point for the power? Seems rather wasteful to me, to travel from one village to another, one at a time, when you could probably divide into smaller groups and hit three or four villages at a time, all of you healing with the power of the Zygradon." He shrugged. "Just an idea."
"I wonder if singing would release the power any more efficiently," Dyryn murmured. He was a Valor who had the ability to touch the Zygradon even if he couldn't see it.
Mrillis exchanged glances with Nixtan and several others who had been involved in the forging of the bowl. They hadn't really told anyone about the entire process of forging the Zygradon. It was an unspoken agreement that some things needed to be held close and secret. The singing that had shown them how to tame the star-metal more readily and bind it to their minds and souls--perhaps even to their physical bodies--was a detail they hadn't even told Breylon.
"Music helps release imbrose, I've observed," Dyryn continued, without seeing the silent exchange. "That's what showed me I was sensitive," he added with a grin, and finally looked up from the journal he had been writing in, as the official chronicler of the healing team. "A friend of my father's has a cloak pin of star-metal, and he came into our great hall while I was practicing my harp. I don't know who was more surprised, him or me, when the Threads became visible and I jumped out of my seat to avoid being strangled by one right on top of my neck."
"Divide us up evenly," Endor said. "Singers and guards and imbrose defenders, and two bound to the Zygradon, leading each team."
"I don't know--" Mrillis began. He thought he almost preferred Endor still sulking a little bit. Or had his friend been bluntly honest, as he used to be, when he said that he didn't envy Ceera the duty resting on her shoulders, and was almost grateful he hadn't been involved in the forging of the bowl?
"What's more important to you? Guarding Ceera's position and authority, or healing as many people as possible, as quickly as possible?"
Several of those around the brazier burst out in disagreement. Mrillis sat back and relayed to Ceera, half-asleep in her tent, wha
t had just been discussed.
He's right, she said after a stretch of silence that made him wonder if she had been hurt acting as the channel for the power, instead of just scoured clean inside and exhausted. Sometimes I think our mistrust of him is more guilt than actual discord in him. He's been hurt, and we label him untrustworthy rather than admit we were wrong. And I would much prefer to have this kind of authority and power taken from my hands.
We have a wedding ceremony to plan, he added. To his relief and delight, that earned a soft little laugh that rippled through the Threads and warmed him. The sooner we're done and heading home, the happier I will be.
You don't enjoy your life of adventuring, my dear Child of Light?
Let's see... Sleeping in a tent, cooking over an open fire, never enough hot water, arguing with fools who wouldn't know common sense if it gave them a black eye, dispensing justice to people who will violate the agreement a moon later... Oh, yes, much preferable to spending my nights holding you, in comfort, with privacy and sensible people for company and someone else to do the cooking, and hot water and clean clothes for the asking, and--
Enough! Her laughter tinkled like tiny bells, and a sensation like arms wrapping warm and tight around him pulsed through the Threads. Tell them Endor's plan is a good one, and I trust him to lead one of the teams. I want Dyryn with us, since he was clever enough to know about music as a key. I want to see what he can do, singing to the Zygradon.
The argument had changed to friendly bickering by the time Mrillis emerged from the private conversation with Ceera. Endor didn't look smug, just satisfied, when Mrillis announced her decision.
They worked until nearly midnight over a map, evenly dividing up the territory and villages of sufferers that needed to be visited. Mrillis stepped into Ceera's tent to check on her, when they finally dispersed to their tents to sleep. She lay curled up like she had done since childhood, the blankets pulled up around her head like a hood, so only a lock of silvery hair and her nose were visible. She was deeply asleep, and Mrillis conjured a spot of light and tugged back the blanket enough to see her face. The deep shadows under her eyes and at her cheekbones, signs of how the flow of power had drained her, were partially erased. He whispered a prayer of thanks to the Estall for that, and silently commanded Ceera to save some of her energy for him, her husband-to-be.
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