by Dorian Hart
“And how will we find Aktallian, when the time comes?” asked Starbrook.
“Assuming he doesn’t change the nature of his attack, I can start with the dreams of the archmagi. Aktallian is not being subtle; I am confident I can track him.” Morningstar had considered spying out Abernathy’s dreams on her own, to see if she could trace Aktallian back to wherever he lurked in the Tapestry, but had decided the risk was too great. The avatar would not have urged her to create a team of dream-skilled sisters unless Aktallian was too dangerous for her to confront alone. Morningstar was the only arrow in the quiver; she dared not risk a missed shot fired too soon.
Even a day removed from her “death” in the Tapestry, her mind lacked its typical drive and vigor. She would not be able to play the part of Aktallian in another mock battle.
“Tonight I would like everyone to focus on disruption. Even the fighting team. In particular, practice returning to normal everything about you: your clothes, your weapons, your armor, your immediate surroundings. Make changes to one another’s reality, and then undo your own changes as quickly as possible.”
Scola and Belle still struggled with altering the Tapestry, though Gyre had made a mental breakthrough and was rapidly gaining proficiency. Amber, Jet, and Previa were consistently the most skilled; they stood in a triangle around a rapidly shifting object—alternately a barrel, chair, and anvil—each trying to wrest its shape to her own will. Morningstar considered separating the three of them, so that they might assist the sisters who were not so adept. But, too weary to make the effort, she told herself it was fine to give them autonomy in how they practiced.
Suddenly she wanted nothing more than pure, dreamless sleep, away from her sisters, away from all responsibility. Was it strange that a part of her yearned for the days of her youth, when her sisters shunned her instead of looking to her for guidance? And of course in the back of her mind hunched the oily, crawling presence of her oath to Shreen, a maddening itch she could not scratch.
After what felt like long enough, she thanked her sisters for their hard work and dismissed all of them except for Previa. But Amber stayed behind as well and approached her before Previa could speak.
“Morningstar, may I speak frankly?”
Morningstar put her fingers to her temples and nodded wearily. “Of course.”
“I have been thinking about your refusal to enlist more sisters in this endeavor.”
Goddess, not this again.
“It is not my refusal.”
“But you are enforcing it,” said Amber. “And after our exercise with all of us working together against you, it became more clear than ever how foolish it is to be so beholden to the Injunction. You saw what happened. Nine of us, all amateurs compared to you, were able to defeat you in minutes. Think what ninety-nine of us could do! Even a man as powerful as Aktallian wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Morningstar sighed. She didn’t have the energy for this fight right now. “Amber, it’s not up for discussion. My avatar speaks with Ell’s authority, and—”
“How do you know?” Amber interrupted. “I’m sure your avatar is very impressive, but none of us have seen her, and it is possible that she is mistaken. You have convinced us, all of us, that stopping Aktallian will be instrumental in saving Charagan from conquest or destruction. We are willing to risk our lives for you. But I don’t believe Ell would want us so shackled in our efforts, given the stakes. And the risk is minimal! The nine of us aren’t violating the Injunction. We are all keeping your secret. If we brought in more sisters, each also could be sworn to secrecy, bound by Ell’s name. High Priestess Rhiavonne need never know what we do—though I am still of the opinion that Ell would be best served if the High Priestess were brought into the fold, so to speak.”
“No!” Morningstar had heard enough. “You show your ignorance when you question the divinity of the avatar. I have knelt before her, looked upon her with my own eyes. The grace of Ell shines through her. And she has said, unmistakably, that Rhiavonne is not to be told of our mission. Violating the Injunction would have consequences every bit as dire as failing to stop Naradawk Skewn.”
“But—”
“Amber, stop. This is not open for discussion. Please, return to ordinary sleep and conserve your strength and passion for where they will be most needed.” She sighed and gave Previa a weary smile. “I must do the same. Being killed, it turns out, is quite exhausting.”
Amber didn’t smile back. She gave Morningstar a long, even look before blinking out of the Tapestry, leaving her alone with Previa.
“I hope she doesn’t do anything rash,” said Morningstar. “This is difficult enough.”
Previa nodded but didn’t offer any additional reassurance.
“Any news from Abernathy?”
“Yes, but nothing has changed. Your wizards have some limited ability to protect their dreams from Aktallian. Abernathy believes we should keep training, that things are not yet at their tipping point, that the time before Naradawk’s final push to escape can still be measured in weeks. But your butler, Eddings, reports that Abernathy only reports to him sporadically, and each time he looks more tired, more beaten down.”
“Then we will stay the course,” said Morningstar.
Previa reached out and took her hand. “I will be right beside you, Morningstar.” She smiled, and her plain face showed sympathy, worry, confidence, friendship—everything Morningstar had never seen on the faces of her sisters over so many years. “When you first came to the archives, I didn’t know what to think. You were the White Anathema, but I knew nothing else about you. No one did. But I no longer think of you that way. I am more certain than ever that you are the white meteor in the dreams of the seers, and that you are going to smash Aktallian to pieces.”
Morningstar looked into her friend’s eyes, and something inside her crumbled apart, a dam bursting before a river of pain and doubt. She clutched Previa, buried her head in her sister’s shoulder, and sobbed like a little girl who had long been lost in the woods but had finally stepped out into the moonlight and discovered she had found her way home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Someone pounded on the door with a fist, more loudly and more times than necessary. “Aravia! It’s time to go!”
Aravia looked down at her book one last time; it contained the formula for conflagration, a spell unlike anything she had tried learning before. Given Aravia’s propensity for experimentation, as well as a sheaf of kingdom law proscribing the use of such, Master Serpicore had been highly reluctant to teach her true destructive magic, particularly pyrokinetics. But recent events, most notably her assault by rats in Djaw, had prompted her to take up the study.
Conflagration was a much trickier spell than she had first assumed. Yes, the book borrowed from Abernathy included the full formula, but to master it properly she should also have taken the companion volumes on incendiary theory and general thermodynamics. Not for the first time she regretted asking only Tor to carry extra books for her; surely Kibi and Grey Wolf could have fit a few each into their packs.
With lingering regret she snapped the book closed and hastily packed the rest of her belongings. Today they would begin the next leg of their journey, this time to the southernmost of the Jewels of the Plains, a city with the uninspiring name of Levenmud. That was the nearest major city to the Stoneguard Mountains, which they would need to cross to reach the Tangled Green. With luck, someone in Levenmud would have a good idea how that might be accomplished.
With Certain Step accompanying them, it would take almost a week of carpet-shuttling to reach Levenmud, and even from there it would be another two hundred miles to the foothills of the Stoneguards. Reading on the carpet was problematic, with the wind whipping the pages, but she could still use the time to practice the hand gestures. Conflagration required some truly wicked contortions of the wrists, but nothing she couldn’t—
Boss, you feel that?
What—?
Aravia experience
d a second of sourceless terror. She whipped her head around frantically, expecting that some dreadful horror had found her, but there was nothing. All of Pewter’s fur stood on end, and he hissed at empty air.
Something bit her head off.
Fangs sheared right through her neck. She fell to the ground, writhing and screaming, grasping for Pewter while a distant part of her mind wondered why there was no blood.
This was not the pain of a crossbow bolt through the shoulder or the teeth of mindless rats tearing her skin. This was a soul-deep agony, as if an angry god had torn out everything beneath her skin in one swift jerk, leaving behind a raw, dead shell. Aravia saw nothing but red, felt nothing but pain and loss, couldn’t stop screaming.
Pewter yowled at the ceiling with anguish that matched her own.
The door opened, and multiple voices shouted her name, but it was just noise. Only the agony mattered. A spike had been driven not just through her heart, but she sensed Pewter’s as well and a million others’ besides. She was alive, impossibly, though she hadn’t stopped screaming and sobbing, and neither had Pewter.
Outside in the streets of Djaw, hundreds of cats recognized her pain, yowling into the dawn, mourning the loss of something irreplaceable, pouring out a grief unfiltered by understanding.
Aravia, what…what happened? It’s like the dogs, but—
She could feel Pewter exerting heroic self-control to speak through the depth of his sorrow. The sound of his voice in her head brought her back to herself, just a little.
Whatever happened to the dogs, that evil has been visited upon us.
Us?
Cats. Can’t you hear them?
Of course…but you…you’re not—
I know. But all the same.
“Aravia, what’s wrong?”
“It’s like the dogs in Lyme.”
“Listen to them all!”
“Is Pewter hurt?”
“I don’t understand what’s happening.”
The voices of her companions washed around her, past her, a meaningless babble. She and Pewter were huddled together in their two minds, wrapped around each other, providing the other comfort.
Pewter, we need to go there.
Where?
The woods. The clearing. I should have gone before.
What are you talking about?
The clearing from my dreams, in the heart of an old forest. We need to go there right away.
Why? And how? If it’s in a dream, do we need Morningstar to help us get there?
No. The forest is real. The clearing is real. Something has been showing it to me.
“Aravia! What’s wrong? Aravia!”
The red haze cleared slightly at the sound of Tor’s voice. He stood over her, terrified worry drawn on his face. All of her friends crowded around her in their little room, speaking worriedly to one another and looking down at her with deep concern. They didn’t understand that a piece of her had died. She looked up, fighting back pain that still burned like fire from the inside out.
“I need to remember this room.” She would need a familiar place to return to.
Tor bent low, his face looming. “What? Why?”
“Just be quiet, all of you!” She hadn’t meant to yell, but the others fell silent. Outside, the wailing of tormented cats shredded the peace of early morning. Aravia looked at the room lit up by the pinkish wash of dawn through the window, memorizing its features, the stains on the walls, the chips in the bedposts. Yes, she could get back here.
She dressed hastily, casting modesty to the winds. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“What?” Grey Wolf looked nervously at the window. “Aravia, what is happening? Why are the cats all—Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. But I’m late.”
Pewter leapt to her shoulder. She started speaking the fast, tongue-twisting syllables and bending her fingers rapidly through the forms for teleport.
“Someone should go with you!” Tor protested, and the others followed on with similar sentiments, but she couldn’t respond without interrupting the spell. And besides, they were wrong. No one should go with her besides Pewter. She wasn’t certain that they could.
The room vanished, and there was green.
* * *
There was no clearing.
Boss, is this it?
No. But I think we’re close.
At the moment of teleportation, something changed in the nature of her soul-stripping pain, something subtle that spoke more of grief than of damage.
Unquestionably this was the forest from her dreams. It was more than the familiarity of the leaning trees, the patterned carpets of fern leaves, the droplets of dew speckling the swaths of moss. It was the dreamy green light that gave her surety, a light that was in no hurry to find the shadows behind logs and beneath boulders.
The forest was trackless and uneven, but Aravia struck out through its density with confidence. That gut-wringing soul-pain continued to recede and morph, becoming more of a deep sorrow.
How do you know which way to go?
Aravia pushed aside a branch. I don’t know. But this way feels like I’m going home.
If you say so.
It must have rained recently; the wood was damp and slick and redolent. Aravia nearly lost her footing several times, once saving herself from plunging down a steep embankment by grabbing onto a hanging vine. At times she heard faintly the sounds of babbling streams through the trees, though she never saw them. Dragonflies darted through clouds of gnats. The forest lived and breathed, though an odd silence prevailed. There was no birdsong.
Something leapt down from a high branch and landed on a nearby patch of moss with a light thump. A cat stood before her, its fur a mottle of brown and orange save for its white feet, its tail lashing back and forth. It arched its back and hissed at her. She stopped and stood very still.
Pewter hopped onto Aravia’s shoulder and hissed back.
Boss, she says she wants us to turn back.
Yes, I guessed that.
No, I mean she spoke to me telepathically! Like we do, though not using human language. She doesn’t know I’m enlightened.
Aravia tried directing her own thoughts at the cat.
Greetings, little one. I am here only because I have been called.
The cat leapt backward as though nipped on the nose.
You can speak!
Indeed. As can you.
This place is not meant for humans.
Aravia held up her hands, palms out. Perhaps not. But it is meant for me. Do you have a name?
I am called White Paws. I prefer it to “little one.”
It’s an honor to meet you, White Paws. My name is Aravia, and this is Pewter.
White Paws lashed her tail. I’ll reserve judgment as to whether there is honor on my end. Why are you here?
Aravia thought carefully before answering. There has been a terrible tragedy, one I felt in my soul. Every cat in Kivia felt it. The answer to this calamity is here, in this forest. I have come to learn it.
White Paws said nothing, but after a minute Pewter spoke to her.
I’ve explained to White Paws how I came to be enlightened, and how I’ve always thought you were like a cat, in your own fashion. She wants to know if you are familiar with the Conclave.
Aravia addressed White Paws directly. No, I have not heard of the Conclave. What is it?
Again there was silence while White Paws spoke to Pewter. After another minute White Paws turned and dashed away into the forest.
She finds our ignorance both offensive and predictable and instructs us to wait here.
Very well.
Aravia found a log that was not too damp and sat. Pewter curled up on her lap.
The world was reordering, mending itself, its fabric growing up and around the wound without healing it. The cure waited in this forest, in the clearing, though that was a feeling born more of intuition than reason.
White Paws is afraid
of you.
She is? Why?
I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just that a human has come this close to something she considers a secret.
Two hours passed. Aravia used the time wisely, reviewing the words and motions of conflagration. Pewter yawned halfway through her repetitions and fell asleep.
Somewhere above the green roof the sun traced its arc, occasionally casting a short-lived twinkle down to the forest floor. Aravia had begun to wonder if White Paws would return, when the cat appeared out of a cluster of ferns.
You’re to follow me. Both of you. Come on.
She turned tail and stalked off, leaving Aravia and Pewter to scramble through the foliage and duck beneath low-hanging vines and branches. It was hard to measure straight-line progress, but Aravia would have guessed that they covered barely a mile over the next hour, catching just enough glimpses of White Paws’ backside and tail to keep up.
We’re here. Stop, and wait.
Up ahead, shrouded in a fog that should have lifted hours earlier, was a clearing. Her clearing, she was sure of it.
White Paws was gone only for a minute this time.
You may enter. Be respectful.
Aravia walked carefully forward, Pewter at her side. The fog thickened quickly, hiding the forest and creating the impression of an enchanted passage through a hall of half-seen greenery. Her skin tingled.
Boss, where are we?
Hush. Be alert.
A final step, and she stood in the clearing. It was as she had dreamed: floor of leaves, walls of pines and birch, ceiling of kaleidoscopic verdancy. Mossy rocks were scattered like ruins across the ground, and upon five of these were cats. A sixth cat sat on a block of ancient masonry shot through with greening cracks, the only thing Aravia had seen in this forest that appeared man-made. That cat—entirely black, its fur sleek and perfect, spoke directly to her mind.
Welcome, Aravia. Welcome to the Feline Conclave.
Yes, welcome. That was from a grey snowshoe longhair, perched on a rock and cleaning himself. His added greeting made Aravia realize that the cats had somehow managed a kind of telepathic network here in the glade. They all heard everything.
