Shadows of Aggar (Amazons of Aggar)

by Chris Anne Wolfe

  “There was never any doubt.” Then with a nod to Elana, Cleis left them.

  Quietly Elana came to stand behind Di’nay, her hands slipping under the damp jerkin. “She is a good friend.”

  Diana nodded, hugging the arms that wrapped about her so lovingly. She added, “So are you.”

  Elana kissed the top of Di’nay’s head and released her, turning to the cupboard doors. Inhaling the sweet scents of the morning’s baking, she opened the small door to the food stocks. Doubtless it had been this faint aura combined with Di’nay’s hunger that had reminded her of food.

  The wind rattled as rain began again. Quickly Diana went to the open window. With a bump one side was secured, and the other opened a bit more, adjusting so that the water wouldn’t come in. She paused, her eyes following the line of the thatched roof just below her to the stables. She thought of her horses, especially of Kaing. Mattee had a good stable crew, so she was not worried about his feeding, but she hoped they had found time to exercise the stallion too.

  A breeze swirled a bit and a fine spray blew into her face. It carried a fresh scent within its dampness, and Diana had to smile at herself. She had come to think of this place as a home of sorts. Elana had been right when she said Aggar was not in her life — in her heart — as her home truly was. But still, it was a part of her now. She slid her hand along the worn, polished wood of the window frame, marveling at how familiar this place was to her… much more so than the base itself.

  The clack and shuffle of the cheese board and the cupboards made her turn. Mutely, Diana watched Elana. Familiar… it was a term that fit more than her own sense of homecoming here. She was silent as Elana filled the metal goblets with the diluted mead from a worn flask. And she wondered again about the Council’s Seers and how much they knew of off-worlders. She remembered the illusive, defiant quality she had seen in Elana the day they met in the gardens. “I would like to work with you…” hadn’t Elana said? But it had been a very personal statement. Diana had been left in no doubt that Elana had meant she wanted to work with her — Diana n’Athena. She had not simply been repeating a formality… she had cared enough to risk tradition by seeking her out before the Choosing. She had the Blue Sight, Elana had said, so she knew Diana well enough to want the honor. But that had not been all of it.

  A dull ache caught in her throat as Diana looked at the young woman, slowly sorting pieces. The woman had known before their garden tryst. She had known of this Inn — well enough to know the King’s Seat, the window at the end of her room — well enough to recognize Mattee’s presence by his amarin alone — his son by name. And the cupboards here? Certainly she could find the food stocks by their auras, but the metal cups and such were not so visible to the Sight. Separately, each meant nothing. But together, there was too much for coincidence.

  Elana had known from the beginning. As the Council had known of Garrison’s mission, Elana had known of her.

  Elana interrupted her thoughts quietly. “You’re frowning at me.”

  The furrows between Diana’s eyes deepened into a scowl as she left the window. What would it change? But her stomach felt constricted in a painful knot. She did not think it was from the discomfort of knowing she might have been spied upon… it felt far more unsettled than that. Some trust broken? There had been no promise… but there had been no sharing either.

  Worried, Elana sat down as Di’nay neared. She had not seen this sort of displeasure directed at her since that night in Cellar’s Gate.

  Standing there, tracing the grain of the table with a finger, Diana wondered if she really wanted to ask. But not knowing would be worse. She slid into the seat. “How well do the Seers know Gronday?”

  Elana felt the more personal accusation behind the question instantly. Di’nay’s amarin had crystallized as she formed the words, and Elana felt the old defenses rise within herself. Inevitably her Sight came to make her an outsider. She had been a fool to think it could actually be different with Di’nay. And it hurt — that biting disappointment hurt. Her gaze fixed grimly on the chalice in her hands and she challenged flatly, “The Seers, Amazon? Or me?”

  Too late Diana remembered how aggressive her words could sound when wrapped with the intensity of her amarin. She pinched the bridge of her nose, forcing a gentler calm on herself. Then she tried again. “How well do you know this inn? Did you learn of it from the Seers?”

  “Well. And no, not from the Seers.”

  The silence hung between them, and suddenly Elana felt ashamed. The shift in Di’nay’s amarin had been deliberate; her lover was trying not to find blame. Elana was reminded of how painful secrets could be — what would she have felt like if her treasured first memories of Di’nay had not been theirs to share? What would it have been like to find there were things Di’nay had known earlier, things that Di’nay had never spoken of? She would have felt suspicious — and used.

  “Forgive me… it is difficult….” Elana swallowed hard, glancing away, shaken. “The Seers know this city well. I learned much of it from them, in the same manner as I learned of Colmar and the Priory. I would not be surprised if they knew something of Mattee and you in this place. His family has been respected here for many centuries. But they did not teach me of them — of you. I… stumbled across this…,” her hand gestured to the room, “…for myself — in dreams and visions.”

  Diana considered that, feeling exposed… vulnerable. Then cautiously she asked, “Did you know of Cleis before — before we talked of her?”

  Elana shook her head. “The Council spoke of two Amazons sent here by the Terrans, both with honorable reputations. But I did not know you were one of them. I knew nothing of Cleis — nor of any of your off-world associates.” She understood. No one, in fact, had been shown to her who might have caused her to suspect Di’nay was an off-worlder… no one who might have stirred the amarin within Di’nay that would suggest she was an Amazon — that she was different. “Maryl was not known to me either.”

  A finger gently touched the black leather of her wristband, and almost bleakly, Elana stared at the open palm offered across the table. It cost Di’nay much to reach through her confusion. Suddenly — almost desperately — Elana grasped her hand. They were both different here; she needed to remember that. There was no better, no lesser — just different… merely inexplicably, complexly different.

  “It hurts that…” Diana was still not looking at her. “…that you said nothing sooner.” Startled, Elana realized Diana was blinking away tears. “Would you have ever said anything?”

  It hurt Elana not to have an answer to that. She tightened her grasp, trembling. “I don’t know. At first I said nothing because you were so leery of us working together — being together. I felt it was because of my Sight… because I am of Aggar and you are not.”

  Diana shook her head, the pain audible in her strangled words. “It wasn’t you. I did not… I could not trust myself. It wasn’t you.”

  “It was me that expected too much too soon,” Elana corrected quietly, firmly. “Until the day we met, I did not know you as an Amazon — as an off-worlder, and yet I was not warned by that discovery. I should have realized I didn’t know you — all of you. It should have reminded me not to assume you would come to feel as I did — as if you knew me too.”

  “A feeling I simply could not trust,” Diana reminded her. Her brown eyes were still shadowed with tears as she looked at Elana. “What did you know of me?”

  “Your strength, your compassion… some of your travels…” … and, she thought, that I loved you and would follow you beyond the White Isles if you bid me. Elana shrugged helplessly. How did one put such dreamspun visions into words? “I knew — hoped — we would be brought together, but whether it would be by the Mother’s Hand or Fates’ Jest, I could not tell.”

  Diana drew a steadier breath. She wondered if she would have said anything to Elana had their positions been reversed. “How long did you — watch me?”

  “I did not watch
consciously,” Elana murmured. “I would dream and you would be there… talking… riding. You would simply be there. Vision-stirred, we call it. Half asleep I would find myself beside you. I could not touch you — call to you. Each time I would stand beside the window and search, I could not find you. But you haunted my dreams and the dark pools of mountain streams. Only once, at the very end, did I stand on a mountain and call and have you come at my bidding. But even then I did not see you as an off-worlder. I could only see that this crisis drew nearer as you rode further away. Where you rode to, I could not see — that you lived in Gronday, I did not recognize.” A wry little smile crossed her lips as she added, “I did say that we of the Blue Sight are poor at unraveling other’s paths. The pieces were there, yet I could not puzzle them together.”

  “For how long?”

  “Since your first night on Aggar.”

  Two-and-a-half seasons? For five years?! Diana balked at the idea.

  “Less often in the beginning… more so in the end,” Elana added softly.

  Five years? Five years of influence… five years of waiting — wondering… and yet she had warned Diana of her right not to choose the Council’s first candidate. Had Elana cared for her so much? Had she known of Diana’s wish to stay uninvolved with life and return home — even then?

  And as for herself?! Diana had had the audacity to suggest Elana was blithely submitting to the Council’s wishes! A chuckle rose, and suddenly Diana found herself laughing.

  At Elana’s confusion, Diana squeezed her hand. “You never thought to tell me sooner?”

  Elana shook her head, bemused at the relief and astonishment that held Di’nay.

  “I accused you of wanting me because of the Council’s directives. Did you not think five years might have changed my impressions, if only a little?”

  Somberly Elana pointed out again, “I did not know you were an Amazon until the day we met.”

  Diana quieted. “Were you frightened then?”

  “No.” Elana remembered the morning they had ridden out from the Keep. “I thought — with you as an Amazon, I thought I was incredibly lucky. Still…,” her voice dropped, “I was too young in your eyes, Di’nay. Would it have changed anything? Or would I have seemed to be a foolish romantic?”

  She could not say, Diana admitted. There was much that she had not understood about the Sight — or about Elana. But she was thankful that Elana told her now, and she was sorry she had wasted so much time in the beginning. “I regret hurting you — mistrusting you. I wish it could have been different.”

  Elana took both of Diana’s hands and smiled tenderly. “I have often said that I have no regrets. I would change nothing. When will you begin to believe me?”

  When I stop hearing what I am afraid to hear, Diana thought a little desperately.

  There was a rough banging at the door. Elana’s shoulders slumped in relief, and she answered Di’nay’s unspoken question. “It is Madt’dan and Garrison.”

  Servants arrived with tub and bath water as Di’nay was going out. With a grin Elana watched her sidestep the men — bread in one hand, mead in the other.

  “Ought to know better then to try to eat and walk.” Diana smiled across the room at her. But she managed a bite as she left in search of Cleis and their hot food.

  Mattee’s men were soon gone, and Paul turned a longing eye to the steaming wooden tub. He was drenched through to the skin, and without the benefit of a fieldsuit, he was chilled to his bones, a fact attested to by the bluish tinge of his lips.

  “Why don’t you get in?” Elana said sympathetically, handing him a chalice of mead. “You look like a drowned river rat.”

  She pulled the window closed, adding, “Di’nay has an extra fieldsuit here. Would you like to try one? The fit won’t be very good, but it might help.”

  “Yes, thanks. It’s nice — your taking care of me.”

  Elana hid her amusement as she turned the key in the lock and opened the trunk. “Di’nay wouldn’t want you to go neglected, Paul.”

  “It’s not Diana that interests me, Elana,” Paul returned, stripping his wet tunic from his torso. “And I know you know that — ”

  In the kitchen, Cleis met Diana at the foot of the stairs. “Mattee wants to know if you want meat or fowl sent up?” She confiscated Diana’s cup and helped herself before adding, “The bird is that stringy stuff that I know you don’t like. But I wasn’t certain of Elana?”

  Given that lexion was the most popular roast in the region, it was a reasonable consideration, Diana admitted. But she sincerely hoped Elana didn’t care for the bird. The fowl had a peculiar taste that tended to cling to one’s breath. As much as she cared for Elana, Diana didn’t fancy sleeping next to her, let alone kissing her, if she munched on the stuff. “Suppose I’d better ask,” Diana groaned, and Cleis laughed.

  Diana snatched the mead back with a dark scowl.

  “You could always tell her you hate the things. She didn’t strike me as stupid — ”

  “That is quite enough!” Diana growled and thrust the goblet back to the woman.

  And Cleis’ laughter followed her up the stairs.

  “Please Paul, don’t — ” Elana shied away from the man, nervously laying the fieldsuit out on the bed.

  “Don’t what?” Disbelieving confusion and wounded pride hurried him forward.

  She started at his quickness, shutting her eyes in panic. This was desperately wrong, but everything was moving too fast.

  “Elana! Answer me!”

  “I don’t — Paul, I never meant…” She shook her head, fighting the sudden rising image of another aggressor. And then suddenly she was in another place and another time. “Di’nay!”

  “Damn n’Athena!” Garrison rasped and spun her about.

  “Please — ” She pulled back, her head bent and eyes shut tight, but he wouldn’t let her go. “Mother please!”

  “Please to what?!” He shook her hard, trying to make sense. “You can’t want her! I won’t let you want her!” His mouth took hers with a vengeance.

  But his assault softened to a coaxing, pleading caress… the hovering cloud of darkness did not press forward. Slowly the rigidity left Elana’s body as the memories released her. This was frustration, not insanity, that held her now, and she felt her fists uncurl.

  His hands loosened their ironlike grip on her wrists as she relaxed. But then, as Elana was gathering her strength to speak, Garrison was finally understanding her reluctance for the truth that it was… and he was withdrawing.

  The door exploded with thunder. Fury of white hot amarin shook Elana as her eyes flew open, and Di’nay’s hands tore Garrison’s body from hers.

  Footstool and woodbox cracked as the weight of the man was thrown.

  “Monster!”

  “No!” Elana moved as Di’nay’s foot kicked the stool aside, splintering it against the far wall. But her words fell unheard as the Amazon heaved the man up and out again — crashing into the bedframe as he fell.

  “Di’nay, no!”

  “Selfish Terran carrion!” Her hands grabbed his shoulders. Fingers dug into muscle as she lifted, slamming him up into the wall, his feet dangling. “By what right?! She travels as Amazon!”

  His head rolled half senseless as again she pounded. “Men die for less!”

  “Di’nay — don’t!”

  “By what right?!” and her elbows came forward, his body crunching between her forearms and the wall. But she couldn’t stomach the stench of his sweat and drew half-back, throwing him higher, screeching, “Answer me!!”

  “Diana!!” The muscles were like sword’s steel beneath her clutching fingers. “He did nothing!”

  Sense hovered, almost penetrating the blood-red haze in her mind.

  “Diana n’Athena! Nothing — he did nothing!”

  Teeth clenched. The muscles in her neck strained as white as the knuckles in her hands. Dazed eyes sought Elana’s pleading figure.

  “Nothing…,” and blu
eness flashed, washing through angry heat.

  “Nothing — ” Elana whispered, and slowly she let Di’nay see what had happened… see how Paul had been slowly, but finally, withdrawing. But then Di’nay knew she had not halted Paul’s advance, and Elana didn’t know if she would be the one to draw this frenzied rage — or if Paul would still be targeted.

  Blank eyes turned, harsh in their blankness, to the man’s limp form. His mouth was bleeding from hitting the corner of the woodbox; his hands clenched her wrists weakly. There was nothing he could do against an Amazon’s strength — it was all he could do to breathe.

  “I should break you in two for even trying,” Diana hissed, but her words were hushed with the vise of control now. She dropped him to the floor and released him as soon as he could keep his feet beneath him. She stepped back, despising the feel of him. “Your room is next door. Use it.”

  He stumbled towards the door, halting as she barked his name. The fieldsuit was flung at him. As the door closed behind him, Diana felt the pit of her stomach retch. She turned from Elana in shame as she realized what she had been about to do. Trusted… she had betrayed that trust. Entrusted with Garrison’s safety, and she had come within a breath of killing the man. Entrusted by Elana to respect their partnership — Elana’s strength and judgment — and she had exploded past reason… past her own judgment. Never had she been so blinded by fury.

  She had wanted to kill… to hurt him. She had wanted to maim him past recognition. And by what right had she been acting?

  “Di’nay — ”

  Her body flinched at Elana’s gentle call, and without a word she fled.

  “Mae n’Pour! Diana, ann nehna?!!” Cleis sprang up from her seat at the kitchen table and grabbed Diana’s arm to steady her. She had never seen her friend so white. “Soroe… nehna?”

  “I’m all right,” Diana muttered, too shaken to shrug off the hand.

  “Like hell you are.” Her eyes darted about the kitchen. Everyone was hurrying about. The Southerners had too long been a part of this household to be noticed in the rush of the kitchen work. “What happened?”