[Age of the Five 01] - Priestess of the White

by Trudi Canavan

  “What did your family think—do you remember that?”

  He frowned, then shook his head. “My parents are dead.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Leiard made a dismissive gesture. “It was a long time ago, when I was young. I barely remember them.”

  Auraya laughed. “When you were young? Leiard, you can’t be all that old. You’re the only person I know who seems to get younger every time we meet.”

  “That’s because you’ve been growing up.”

  She crossed her arms. “How old are you?”

  He paused and frowned. “About forty, I think.”

  “You think? How can you not know exactly how old you are?”

  His frown deepened. “Arleej believes my loss of memory is caused by me not linking with other Dreamweavers for many years.”

  Sensing his distress, she decided to change the subject. It was clear his loss of certain memories bothered him.

  “How many years has it been since you joined a link?”

  “Not since before I lived in the forest near your village.”

  She drummed her fingers against her arm. “How long were you in the village before my family arrived?”

  “A few years.”

  “Then you haven’t linked for nearly twenty years. How old are Dreamweavers when their training is finished?”

  He looked at her oddly. “Twenty, if they start young.”

  She nodded. So he was right: he was about forty. For some reason that disappointed her. Maybe because the older he was, the less time she would know him for. He would only grow older while she stayed the same physical age. It gave her an uncomfortable feeling that time was running out. A few more decades and his soul would be gone forever.

  “Have Dreamweavers ever served the gods?” she found herself asking.

  “No.”

  “Do you think they ever would in the future?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t want to.”

  She looked at him sidelong. “Because they had Mirar killed?”

  “Partly.”

  “And the other part is?”

  “Because being powerful does not give someone the right to tell others how to think or live, or who to kill.”

  “Not even if that someone is older and wiser than you? Like a god?”

  “No.” He looked away. “People should have a choice whether they worship the gods or not.”

  “They do.”

  “Without punishment or penalty?”

  “So you expect them to take your soul whether you worship them or not?” she asked in return.

  “No. I expect my people to be free from persecution.”

  “That is in the past.”

  “Is it? Then why do Dreamweavers still fear to walk the streets of Jarime? Why are they forbidden to practice their skills in order to help people?”

  Auraya sighed. “Because of what happened a century ago. And I don’t mean Mirar’s death.”

  He said nothing to that. She was both relieved and disappointed. While she did not want to argue with him, she did want to hear his view on the events in the past that had led to the Dreamweavers’ situation now.

  According to records she had read, Mirar had been both admirable in his work and self-indulgent in his habits. He had taught his people everything about medicines and care for the sick or wounded. His Gift of healing had been unique and he’d been generous at applying it.

  But he’d had a reputation for indulging in drink, pleasure drugs and seduction that had scandalized many. Dreamweavers, though they did not speak of it, knew that the reputation was well earned. The truth was in link memories of Mirar and those who had known him, passed down through the generations. Auraya could see this knowledge in their minds. She had seen it in Leiard’s.

  Still, it was not Mirar’s character flaws that had convinced the gods that he must be killed. He had worked openly against them, trying to prevent the formation of the White. He had seeded doubts, telling the people malicious lies about the fate of their souls in the gods’ hands. He had claimed that some of the dead gods had not deserved their fate, while the Circle were guilty of terrible acts of cruelty. And the final action that had condemned him had been to send the people of Ithania powerful dreams in an attempt to turn them away from the gods.

  Instead, the people had begged the gods to free them from his manipulations.

  He brought about his own death, she thought.

  Yet what followed Mirar’s death had been terrible. The gods had never decreed that ordinary Dreamweavers should be killed, but there had been many murders of Dreamweavers after Mirar’s death, carried out by overly enthusiastic Circlian followers. These fanatics had been punished, but it took a long time to discourage others from emulating them.

  Most Circlians knew that no priest had ever matched a fully trained Dreamweaver in medical skills or knowledge. Now that Auraya understood the purpose and benefits of a mind link, she had realized that this was how the Dreamweavers shared and passed on so much knowledge. As far as she knew, no priest had ever attempted anything like a mind link. Except for telepathy, which did not involve opening one’s mind to another, Circlians felt an aversion to having their minds messed with. Invading another’s mind was a crime—a law which had been instated because of Mirar’s actions.

  Perhaps it’s time for us to get over our squeamishness, Auraya mused. If the Circlian priests learned to do what Dreamweavers could, they, too, could increase their knowledge of healing. She felt a chill run over her skin. If they matched, even surpassed, the Dreamweavers, one of the most powerful attractions for newcomers to the heathen cult would be lost. The Dreamweaver cult might fade out of existence in a few generations. Or in one, if I or other White pass on the knowledge we read from their minds.

  She shivered. No. That would make us guilty of the crime people have always suspected Dreamweavers of: invading the privacy of another’s mind and using the information to harm others.

  Yet it could be done without any linking of minds. If priests could be persuaded to work alongside Dreamweavers they were sure to pick up new skills and knowledge. It would be slow, but it would encourage tolerance and acceptance in the meantime.

  Do I really want to be the cause of the Dreamweavers’ demise?

  No. But I can’t continue to let people turn away from the gods and sacrifice their souls. Not when it isn’t necessary. People believe that the Dreamweavers’ healing knowledge will be lost unless some make that sacrifice. But if they could learn the same things by becoming priests and priestesses would they still become heathens?

  Today, in this garden, with Leiard walking beside her, she had stumbled upon a terrible dilemma. One day she was going to have to choose between keeping his friendship and saving souls.

  But not right now. Danjin had appeared on the path before them. He grinned as he saw her, and she knew without reading his mind what his news would be. She did not feel triumph, however, only a wry relief.

  “They’ve done it!” he called. “They’ve signed the alliance!”

  Emerahl looked over her shoulder. Her little boat of silvery wood glowed in the moonlight. Casting her eye over the mooring rope, she nodded to herself, then drew her shawl over her head and made her way along the dock.

  She had been travelling for weeks now, sailing up the coast of Toren. Every few days she had moored at small coastal villages to sell cures in exchange for food, clean water and items such as sailcloth, a waterproof sea tawl and fishing line. The people she traded with treated her with friendly respect, though it was clear they thought it peculiar that an old woman might travel this way.

  The villages had grown steadily larger and more frequent until it seemed every bay had sprouted a pier or five. This afternoon she had turned into a deeper bay where large ships slowly swayed at anchor. Buildings covered all the land, and the coast was a labyrinth of wooden docks. She had arrived at the city of Porin, capital of Toren.
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  A length of dried starlight weed had bought a mooring from the corrupt dockmaster. One of the village women had stolen it from her husband to exchange for a cure for a feverish child several months earlier. Emerahl had been saving it for herself and was not pleased to be losing it. The hallucinatory qualities, coupled with euphoria, made it one of her favorite pleasure drugs.

  So she was not in a pleasant mood as she strode into the city’s market district. In any large city there was a place where trade never stopped and shops never closed. People, when desperate, sought out cures at any time of the night.

  She did not intend to trade with the customers in the market, however. The right to trade was always a jealously guarded commodity in cities. If she had wanted to sell her wares she would have had to make an arrangement with a stallholder to work outside his or her shop. Part of her profit would go toward paying for the privilege of plying her trade. She didn’t have time for that.

  Instead, she had a collection of items to sell to cure shops. Some she had already possessed, some she had gathered on the way. There were sacs of venom from yeryer fish to thin the blood, spines of the prickle mat which could be used to apply a shot of anesthetic to a precise location, and antiseptic straps of seaweed. She had added to this a few bags of ground firespice, which had grown in plentiful quantities around the lighthouse, and several potent herbs.

  A few items of no medicinal but high monetary value had found their way into her bag. Most were aphrodisiacs. Generally these had no genuine physical effect, but most people became so excited by the thought they were indulging in a “cure” that stirred sexual desire that they mistook their excitement for the effect of the “cure.” Of course, these “cures” came either from some fierce creature, like the teeth of the giant garr she had found washed up on a deserted beach, or they looked like sexual organs, like the dried sea worms, fleshy phallic wemmin flowers and sea bell she’d found tangled in some floating weed. The latter she would consider selling only as a last resort. It was rare and valuable, and no shopkeeper was going to pay a passing traveller what it was truly worth. One day she might be in a better position to barter.

  Noise and light drew her to her destination. Large awnings, each hung with lanterns, formed two tunnels along each side of a long street of shops. Musicians added a cheerful note to the voices of the thin crowd of shoppers. Some sellers bellowed out inviting descriptions of their wares. Others made bold promises of reasonable prices and fair deals.

  Emerahl bought a loaf of bread, a stick of grilled ner—she was heartily tired of fish—some overpriced fruit and a cup of sweetened, fermented shem milk. As she continued along the street the smells of food were replaced by the acrid smell of smoking herbs and incense. Here she found what she was looking for.

  The first shop of cures was large and busy. A counter stretched across the front of the store and jars of many sizes and shapes filled shelves along the back wall. She brought her bag to the counter and waited patiently to be noticed. The seller was a middle-aged bald man with sharp eyes. As soon as he finished selling a dubious cure for footrot to a young soldier, he turned to her.

  “What can I help you with, young lady?”

  She smiled at his attempt at flattery. “My poor arm aches,” she told him. “So I am hoping to sell some of my bag’s contents.”

  His sharp eyes flashed with amusement. “Is that so? And you hope to sell them to me?”

  “Yes.” She opened the bag and drew out the jar containing the sacs of yeryer venom. “Would you have a use for these? They’re fresh. I collected them no more than a week ago.”

  As she opened the jar, his eyebrows rose. “A week, you say? Perhaps I could spare a few coin for them.” He eyed her bag, which was smelling somewhat fishy. “What else do you have?”

  She drew out a few more items, then the bartering began. He was interrupted several times by a younger man, perhaps his son, who eventually disappeared into the back of the shop. Emerahl concentrated on her customer. He was selective, spending long moments in consideration, though she judged she was offering her goods at low prices. He did not meet her eyes, and she found herself wishing she had managed to keep up her skill at sensing emotions.

  I’m going to have to regain it, she thought. It will make it easier to adapt to the changes in the language, too. I’d assumed the villagers’ strange way of speaking was a result of their low background, but it seems Toren speech has changed in general.

  The seller had seen only half of the items in her bag now. Growing tired of this man’s slow manner, she decided to pretend this was all she had to sell, and asked for her money.

  He slowly counted out coins from a purse, stopping midway when his assistant returned to have a whispered conversation.

  “I’d like to get to my bed sometime soon,” Emerahl interrupted. She put her hand on top of the jars he’d agreed to buy and took a half-step back from the counter. “Aren’t my prices good enough for you?”

  He raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry, lady, but my assistant has a rather delicate and urgent matter to attend to.” He returned to the counter and counted out the rest of the coins. She pushed the jars toward him, swept the coins into her bag and cut his long farewell short.

  As she left the shop, she let out a sigh of irritation. Had he been hoping she’d lower her price just to get him to hurry up? Had she looked like she was in a hurry?

  Puzzling over this, she wandered into a nearby liquor seller’s and bought a measure of spicewater. Taking a seat in a dark corner, she raised the glass to her lips and looked across the street to the cure-seller’s shop.

  She nearly choked as she saw two priests step out of the door. The seller appeared and pointed toward the liquor shop. As the priests headed toward her Emerahl’s heart began to race.

  They probably just want a drink, she told herself. But they were looking at everyone in the street. As an old woman passed them, they paused and stared at her intently. No, it’s not a drink they’re looking for.

  Suddenly the seller’s behavior made sense: his evading her eyes, his delaying her. His assistant disappearing. The whispered conversation between them.

  “…a rather delicate and urgent matter to attend to.”

  The matter of an old woman selling cures? Had the shop owner been told to watch for her? I don’t know that for sure, she told herself. This could be a simple coincidence. The priests might be looking for someone else. The fact that she had just been driven from her home by one was making her suspect them all of seeking her.

  Coincidence or not, I’m not waiting around to find out. Emerahl opened her bag, pulled out her oiled waterproof sea tawl and shrugged into it. Removing the shawl about her head, she replaced it with a broad-brimmed sailor hat, tucking her hair inside. Then she wrapped her bag in the shawl and put it under her arm.

  The priests were only a few strides from the liquor seller’s now. She stepped out of the door, paused to make the sign of the circle with one hand in their direction, then moved away, walking with the rolling, unhurried gait of a sailor.

  She waited for them to call out, but only the boasting of the sellers broke the general hubbub of the market. It seemed to take forever for her to reach the end of the street. Once there, she quickened her pace a little and kept to the shadows.

  Am I being pursued? If I am, how could the priests have guessed that I would come to the Porin night market to sell cures?

  The answer was clear. If the priest at Corel had travelled up the coast he would have heard of the strange old woman selling cures who sailed alone in a boat. He would have recognized her and alerted priests in towns ahead by telepathy, telling them to watch for an old curer woman passing through. It was sheer luck that she hadn’t been confronted by another priest before now.

  But why? These priests couldn’t possibly know who she really was.

  Maybe the priest at Corel was curious to know who the cranky old sorceress was who had been living in a remote lighthouse for so
long…

  Oh. Her stomach sank. If he asked the villagers how long I’d been there, they might have told him generations. That would make him suspect I am immortal. Even if he doesn’t believe it, he’s probably obliged to check.

  As she neared the docks, she slowed. Creeping closer, she searched her surroundings. In the distance she could just see her little boat tied up to the pier. Finding a darkened corner, she sat down and waited.

  She did not have to wait long. As the dockmaster emerged from his shack she glimpsed the corner of a chair and the back of someone wearing something white with a blue edge.

  Goodbye, little friend, she thought at the boat. I hope you find a good owner.

  Then, with a pang of regret, she turned away and slipped into the shadows of the city.

  The stranger had taken a seat at the back of the room and had spent the last two hours watching the other occupants of the drink shop. Roffin hadn’t liked the look of the man from the moment he had walked in. Too well groomed, he was. Trussed up in a big tawl. A foreigner, with an arrogance to his manner that suggested highborn ways. Roffin didn’t like the way the man watched everyone come and go.

  “You lookin’ at our mystery guest again?” Cemmo murmured.

  Roffin turned to regard his companion. Cemmo was a wiry man, one of the youngest of the local fishermen. Roffin grunted quietly.

  “His kind don’t belong here.”

  “Nope,” Cemmo agreed.

  “Should be up at the high-folks’ drink shop.”

  “Tha’s right.”

  “Someone oughta throw him out.”

  “Upta Garmen. He won’t ’less there’s trouble.”

  “Garmen’s got somethin’ to lose if highborn folks take exception. We don’t,” Roffin pointed out.

  Cemmo looked away. “True. But…I dunno. Somethin’ ’bout him looks dangerous.”

  “Just his starin’ gettin’ to you.”

  Garmen, the owner of the drink shop, gave the stranger a quick, nervous glance. The man wasn’t drinking much, either, Roffin noted. Cheap, foreign bastard.