In her brief tenure in the clan, Dana had mastered the art of fire building, and she had a bonfire crackling in the rock pit near the altar. Kyla sat on a low bench nearby, warming her hands by the flames. Her head was inclined toward Sarah, who sat beside her, drawing on her pipe. The old woman caught Brenna’s eye and winked before resuming her story.
“Lady,” Jess called. “I need a word.”
“Jess,” Brenna sighed.
“No, Bren.” Jess covered the hand Brenna laid on her arm with her own. “This needs to be said.”
Shann was deep in conference with Aria, who tended a boiling kettle. Aria wafted the fragrant steam swirling from the pot’s interior to her face with a twirl of her wrist, the image of a voluptuous elder witch. Shann lifted a hand to acknowledge Jess, but her fingers spun a request for patience. She whispered a last word to Aria, then joined Brenna and Jess.
“What is it, Jesstin?” Shann looked harried. She brushed a tumbling lock of hair off her forehead, her cheeks flushed by the heat of the fire. “We’re nearly ready. Brenna, we can only estimate the intensity of this brew by fragrance and color. But I promise you, it’s the mildest dose discernible.”
“My lady queen.” Jess reached for Shann’s hand and held it until she looked up into her eyes. “You know I trust you with my whole heart. Hear me now.”
The impatience faded from Shann’s features. “I’m listening, Jess.”
“You and Brenna believe Dyan waits for her on the far side of the veil.” Jess’s tone was respectful. “But the blood of Sirius is still fresh on our hands, Shann. We don’t know who or what else Brenna might find there.”
“True enough, Jesstin.” Shann looked at Brenna with shadowed eyes. “I understand all too well the risks we’re asking your adonai to face.”
“We can mitigate them. Send me with her, lady.”
“Dear one.” Shann laid her hand on Jess’s cheek. “We can’t know what effect this tea would have on an Amazon with no natural psychic shields. Brenna is virtually the only woman among us with some assurance of safe travel. Believe me, I would go in our sister’s place myself if I could.”
“Like Brenna, I accept the risks of this journey.” Jess took Shann’s hands in her own. “And I’ll look to her for protection, when it comes to phantoms. All I ask is your leave to safeguard my wife against more visceral enemies.”
“Brenna is more than your wife to Tristaine, Jesstin,” Shann said gently.
“Of course she is.” Jess glanced at Brenna, and even through her urgency there was warm pride in her eyes. “As much as I love Brenna, lady, it’s not her protection alone that drives me. I seek this honor for the sake of our clan as well. If Tristaine loses her only prophet, we lose our connection to divine help.”
“I can’t allow it, Jess.” Shann squeezed Jess’s hands. “This sacred plant might even prove poisonous to one outside the guild of seers, and the life of the leader of our warriors is also precious to Tristaine. We must let Brenna make this journey alone.”
“Excuse me.” Brenna tapped her way politely in between Jess and Shann. “As the endangered party, may I add to this discussion?”
She noted Jess had the grace to flush. “Of course, lass.”
“Jesstin.” Brenna stepped closer to her. “I know you trust me with your life. You have yet to learn to trust me with the welfare of our clan.”
“Ah, Bren.” Jess sounded dismayed. “Of course I trust you. I never meant—”
“Hush, then.” Brenna laid her fingers against Jess’s lips. “Just listen a minute.” She extended her arm and showed her the silver bracelet adorning her wrist. “I earned my year in Tristaine, Jess, every day of it. I’ve fought in our battles, and tended our wounded, and buried our dead. I climbed over a mountain range with every other woman in the tribe to reach this mesa. True?”
“True, Brenna.”
“Every Amazon in Tristaine is willing to defend her sisters with her life.” Brenna poked Jess’s chest to emphasize her point, but then softened her hand against her breast. “That’s what you told me, one night in the Clinic when you were so homesick for these women I was afraid your heart might stop.”
Brenna measured the steady pulse beneath her palm, willing Jess to absorb understanding through the pores of her skin. A hundred faces flickered through her mind, sisters she had met and grown to love, only because of this one obstinate Amazon. “This is my clan now too, adonai. Tristaine took me in, and I’ve found family here. I’ve earned the right to protect my sisters.” She cradled Jess’s face in her hands. “I’m sorry, love, but where I’m going tonight, you can’t follow. You have to let me walk by my own light.”
The square was quiet, save for the snapping of the fire, until Sarah rose from her bench with a dry cackle. “Madlady’s moon, Shann. To the very word, you gave that speech to Dyan, the night before your first battle.”
“I remember, grandmother.” Shann cupped the back of Brenna’s neck and smiled at Jess. “It’s the hardest work our Mothers ask of us, Jesstin, risking the women we love in order to preserve the clan we all cherish. I’m afraid it never gets easier, adanin.”
Jess released a sigh as bleak as a wind-swept glacier. “I hear you, lady.”
Brenna stood on her toes and brushed a swift kiss on Jess’s cheek.
“Ladies?” Aria wrapped a cloth around the kettle’s handle and lifted it off the fire. “I’m afraid it’s teatime in Tristaine.”
One by one the women rose and drifted toward the stone altar. Brenna shivered and turned back to Jess, who lowered her head until their foreheads met. They leaned lightly against each other, the swells of Brenna’s breasts cushioning Jess’s firm ones. It was one of their favorite ways of touching, and they relaxed in the unique and sensual comfort of this quiet blending of their bodies.
“Okay,” Brenna whispered, closing her eyes, “so after the I-am-much-woman speech, I can still tell you I’m scared witless, right?”
Jess’s arms were strong and warm around her. “You’d be daft not to be, Bren.”
“You’ll stay close.”
“Hell’s fury can’t move me.”
Brenna opened her eyes and filled her lungs with cold air. Then she let go of Jess and walked to the altar.
Dana and Kyla stepped apart to admit her to the circle of women around the black stone, and Kyla gripped Brenna’s hand with chilly fingers as she passed. Dana gave her shoulder an awkward pat. Brenna offered them what she hoped was a reassuring smile, but her teeth were chattering, and the effect was probably a bit macabre.
“Shanendra wouldn’t let me add anything, Brenna.” Aria tisked as she poured the steaming amber liquid from the kettle into a silver cup resting on the altar’s surface. “Not one drop of honey, not one sprig of mint—”
“Peace, Aria, you’ve done well.” Shann helped her lower the kettle to a nearby rock. She turned to Brenna and took her hands. “Are you ready, adanin?”
“I need a drink.” Brenna tried to smile. “Something with a little kick. I guess this brew will have to do.” She felt a tremor in Shann’s hands and pressed them gently. “I’m ready, lady.”
“Safe journey, little sister.” Shann kissed her forehead. “Come home to us soon.”
Brenna felt the altar lurking behind her like a living presence. The craggy stone block still pulsed with a banked power. It carried as much sinister menace as the granite sculpture near the cemetery had evoked poignant grief. Brenna didn’t let herself see the sigils carved into its surface. Instead, she focused on the leather-hilted labrys still resting in its center.
She lifted the gleaming silver cup and cradled it in her palms, the heat emanating through the metal shocking her cold fingers. She held it beneath her nose, her eyes crinkling at the sharp fragrance rising with the steam. The pungent tea carried a faint licorice scent, which seemed a hopeful sign.
The faces around Brenna were a study in watchful tension. The firelight reached them only faintly this close to the altar, and the
ir features were washed in soft reddish light. Sarah stood motionless, her shawl wrapped around her bony shoulders, betraying her worry only through her rapid draws on her pipe. Aria’s beautiful features held no trace of humor, and Kyla and Dana were both visibly pale. Brenna met Shann’s shadowed gaze, then reached for Jess’s hand.
To her own surprise, Brenna murmured a brief prayer before she drank. She wasn’t specific about who she was praying to. Just those phantom women every Amazon called on in times of need, with a child’s pure faith that her Mothers will hear her.
The thin liquid flooded Brenna’s mouth with heat and a taste more bitter than she’d expected, and her throat almost closed. She swallowed hard, then drained the cup in three determined gulps.
Kyla gasped somewhere behind her. “Is she supposed to bolt it like that, lady?”
“We don’t know how quickly this tea might act, Ky.” Shann took the cup from Brenna’s hand and studied her face closely. “How are you, Blades?”
“Fine, thanks. How are you?” Brenna realized she was squeezing Jess’s hand with painful force and made herself relax her grip. She opened her eyes, and the sculpted lines of Jess’s face swam into focus. Or almost. She was starting to sparkle a bit around the edges. A mild wave of dizziness went through Brenna. “Maybe I should lie down.”
There was a flurry of movement around her, and careful hands helped her sit on the black altar. Jess lifted her legs, and Shann took Brenna’s shoulders and eased her down until she was lying flat.
“Jeeze, this thing is cold,” she hissed. A certain chill might be expected from a stone block, but the cold seeping into Brenna from its dense depths seemed almost arctic. She shifted and quickly gave up finding any semblance of comfort on the craggy rock.
“This part just kills me.” Dana’s voice reached her faintly. “She looks like some virgin sacrifice laid out on this thing. Plus, as far as we know, this altar might eat people. Wouldn’t a warm cabin have been just as good for this ritual?”
“This altar is our doorway, Dana.” Shann’s hand was warm on Brenna’s hair. “Everything is centered here.”
“Bren.”
She opened her eyes. Jess stood close beside the altar, holding the labrys. The rising moon loomed behind her, outlining her muscular form in silver light. Brenna opened her hands and accepted the revered weapon, resting its curved blades over her breasts and holding the short hilt near her waist. Its solid weight was comforting, an anchor holding down the frenzied fireflies in her belly.
“Just breathe slowly, Brenna.” Shann’s fingers moved through her hair.
She was starting to feel decidedly odd. A prickly lightness filled her stomach and spread up into her chest.
“I’m here, Bren.” Jess’s large hand covered her own.
She felt her body grow weightless, as if she were evaporating into an insubstantial mist, and something cell-deep in Brenna rebelled at this alien state. She tightened hard, her back arching against the stone, then felt a horrific sensation of melting down into the altar itself, vanishing into that malign black bulk.
“Relax, dear one.” Shann’s breath brushed her forehead. “It’s all right, Brenna. You know what to do. Trust your sight.”
Brenna focused on the midnight heavens above her, each pinpoint of light a crisp pinwheel against the velvet sky. Seven particular stars formed a firmament that flickered brightest and drew her toward them like a celestial tide calling its lost children home.
Abruptly the Seven Sisters sparked and telescoped into rushing streaks of light, and Brenna felt herself soaring upward, twisting in gentle spirals of warm wind.
*
Lush grass tickled her ankles—thick, cool, and a dazzling deep green.
Brenna blinked and raised her head.
The sun-drenched light that flooded the clearing struck her first, startling after the soft mist of the mesa. Startling, too, that in the village square it was cresting midnight, and here—wherever “here” was—it seemed to be high noon.
She stood in an open, grassy space at the edge of a thick forest, beneath a cloudless sky saturated with rich blue. It took Brenna a moment to realize the heavy weight in her hands was the ebony labrys, and she gripped its hilt gratefully.
Brenna breathed in a chestful of the sweetest air ever to grace a human lung and let Jess’s training take over. She turned in a tight circle, surveying the terrain, the two-headed axe held ready for a quick defense. She was alone, that much was obvious, and no immediate threat set off her internal alarms. Her pounding heart began to ease to a more comfortable rhythm.
She knew this place. Perhaps only in dreams, but its beauty resonated in Brenna’s memory. She’d stood on this goddess-graced ground before.
Brenna completed her circle and let out an abrupt yelp of dismay. She was perched at the edge of a virtual cliff. The earth dropped off abruptly only inches from her boots. Brenna leaned forward to trace the wall’s sheer descent to a rocky floor a good two thousand feet below, then straightened quickly.
“Great, heights will still scare the crap out of me in heaven,” Brenna muttered, her hand to her breast.
“Amazons need courage in all their lives.”
A ragged gasp burst from Brenna, and she whirled, the double-bladed axe swinging in a clumsy circle before her. Unaccustomed to its weight, she nearly lost her footing, but managed to regain it with an unlovely lurch.
The giant of her vision towered over her. She wasn’t glowing anymore, but she was still a giant, and now her handsome features were crystal clear. The dark woman easily topped nine feet, not counting her boots. The muscles of her crossed arms stood out in stark relief, and her entire being emanated a sinewy strength. Eyes black as obsidian regarded Brenna quizzically.
“You’re Dy...” Brenna’s words died in her throat. “You couldn’t be.”
She remembered and treasured Jess’s vivid description of Shann’s adonai. Though they shared a common mother, Dyan had rough features that carried none of Kyla’s delicate beauty. Ravishing in the strength of her spirit, in life Dyan had been short, broad as a barn, freckled, and plain as dirt. The black-haired colossus before her was stunning.
She unfolded her arms and crooked two fingers at Brenna. “Ye hold what’s mine.” The malted brogue clearly echoed the voice that had called to her at the river.
Brenna felt the labrys vibrate in her hands. It lifted abruptly out of her grasp and sailed through the air in a pure arc to its true owner. The woman caught the weapon with one lazy snap of a wrist, and the labrys was transformed by her touch. The double-bladed head shimmered, then transformed from pitted steel to some flawless black metal that sparked sunlight off its glossy surface. The hilt grew longer and became a dark, gleaming rosewood, balanced effortlessly in the warrior’s powerful grip.
A very human fondness flickered across her beautiful features as her fingers flexed around the axe’s hilt. She sent the curved blades in a tight, whistling circle around her head so fast Brenna could hardly follow the motion, the wicked edges slicing a note of music out of the clear air. The labrys snapped neatly into the leather sheath strapped across her broad back.
Brenna saw the sun spark off the simple silver ring on the giant’s third finger. It was identical to the band Shann wore. Unlike the labrys, this symbol of their bond was unchanged from its earthly form, and Brenna understood that this crude ring was already perfection.
“Dyan,” she whispered.
Dyan grinned, and now Brenna could see her little sister in her. There was a gamin quality in that smile that was all Kyla.
“Short, was I now?”
“N-not anymore,” Brenna admitted. “Can I ask where we are?”
“You’ve not traveled far in one sense, lass.” Dyan’s voice rang like a deep bell. She set her hands on her hips and nodded toward the dense forest. “We stand at the edge of the mesa this generation of Tristaine calls home.”
“We do?” Brenna asked politely. She glanced over her shoulder and shuddered a
t the sheer drop behind her. The mesa she knew didn’t involve towering cliffs.
“We haven’t much time, Brenna, so listen well.” Dyan lowered herself slowly to one knee next to her, and Brenna had a vivid memory of her doing so, with equal care, in her vision. Now she only had to crane her neck slightly to look into her dark eyes.
“The demon who plagues Tristaine was an Amazon queen. And a powerful sorceress. She ruled this mesa three hundred years ago. And she destroyed her own clan. Made them blood sacrifices to the dark gods to win immortality for her poxed soul.”
Brenna felt that appalling betrayal deep in her gut and heard it echoed in the revulsion in Dyan’s rich voice.
“Her undead spirit slaughtered a second Amazon tribe who inhabited this mesa a century later. And she means to make the adanin of Tristaine her next victims.”
“Wait a minute.” A frisson of fear coursed down Brenna’s back. She heard Kyla’s voice in her mind, at the storyfire three nights ago, telling the chilling ghost story that held the clan rapt. “Are we talking about that legend? That demon queen who sucks the souls out of Amazons? Botesh?”
“Botesh,” Dyan confirmed “The name means ‘shame’ in a dozen languages. She’s more than legend, girl. If she enslaves the spirits of a third Amazon clan, she’ll fill her unholy pact with her dark masters. She’ll regain human form, with all the powers of her sorcery intact. And that twisted canker will be as immortal as the gods themselves.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Rage shook Brenna, drowning her fear, and her palms itched for a weapon. The warrior in her was rising fast. “Tell us what to do, Dyan.”
Dyan’s eyes glinted. “Give this message to m’lady, Brenna. Tristaine’s greatest warriors can’t stop Botesh. Only an Amazon queen, an equally powerful light matched to her darkness, can vanquish this evil. But Shann must not face her alone.”
Her huge hand rested gently on Brenna’s shoulder. “Tell her she must call on the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. Their blended powers are Tristaine’s only hope. Shanendra will ken my meaning.”
Tristaine Rises Page 11
