This time it was Tonia Nast’s turn to bare her teeth. She waved her gloved hand as if to shoo away an annoying insect. “‘They say, they say, what say they?’” she said, quoting the famous playwright, and her smile turned genuine. “What do we care, you and I? I almost envy you, Juria. This is what the historians write their books about.”
Juria found herself smiling back. “Only if we win.”
For a moment the other woman’s face turned serious, but the grin returned so quickly that Juria couldn’t be sure she’d seen anything else. A whistle from below drew her attention to the assembled soldiers. The Laxtor of Panthers was holding up her left hand in signal. Juria turned back to Tonia.
“May the Mother hold you in her arms,” she said.
“And you, as well.” Suddenly Tonia held up her own arms and, more than a little surprised, Juria stepped into them, to give and receive the double kiss of family. “If you should see her, tell my sister I love her, and I think of her always.”
Juria swallowed and blinked away the moisture in her eyes. “Which one?”
Tonia tilted her head to one side. “Whichever.”
It wasn’t until the last of the Panthers were almost out of sight on the road away from the pass that Surm came up to the battlements and stood next to her.
“Could they have stopped us?” he said. “Are we doing the right thing?”
Juria answered without turning around. “‘Perhaps’ answers both your questions. But something is sure.” She slipped her arm around Surm’s waist. “We Sweetwaters have always been lucky, ever since my great-grandfather held the Gellas Bridge against Penvals. And the Nasts are luckier than most.”
For the first time since she’d entered the mines, Kerida was in a real living space, not a meeting hall, not a sleeping alcove, but a room with a table and chairs, cupboards, and shelves filled with plates, dishes, and scrolls. There was even, against the north wall, a small shrine to the household gods, with the statue of the Mother well to the fore. Ker stroked her hand across the fine-grained wood of the tabletop.
“From one of my very first trading trips,” Ganni said from his seat across the table. “My grandfather took me. I spotted this table and decided I couldn’t go home without it.”
The grain seemed to move in the shifting candlelight. “Do you remember what you traded for it?”
“Yes, I do, child. A pair of small candlesticks carved in the shape of griffins by Sendova himself. His work always fetched good prices. It still does, though he’s long gone now.”
“None of which brings us any closer to our business,” Norwil said from where he leaned against the doorframe.
“Where are the others?” Ker, Wynn, and Jerek had been given a chance to wash up, but after that she’d been brought here alone.
“The young prince is off with Ennick, though he said he’d come if you feel he’s needed,” Ganni said. “And your Wynn’s showing our archers a thing or two. They needn’t hear all our business, need they? It’s you the Prophecy and the griffin speak of, and it’s you who’re one of us, not those others. Time to talk to them when we have ourselves sorted out.”
Ker leaned back in her chair, looking from one Feeler to the other. She could see nothing but kindness and concern on the old man’s face, and though Norwil still seemed to think of her as some sort of prize that put the Feelers of the Mines and Tunnels ahead of the Springs and Pools Clan, she was at least valuable to him. She’d never thought of herself as fully “one of us,” no matter where she’d been. Not at home, not in the military, even before the Halls of Law had taken them both away. When she’d made up her mind to be a Talent, the Halians had destroyed her chances. Whatever Ganni thought, and Ker was sure the old man meant well, she wasn’t so sure she could be “one of us.”
“You’ve done what you promised us you’d do,” Norwil said. “You’ve brought us the prince. We’ve got a bargaining point now with the Wings and the Polity. We come to them from a position of strength.”
“Is that still so?” Ganni said. “What with it being the boy?”
Ker shrugged. “The Faro of Bears was sure the Wings would be willing to follow his father . . . They should be just as willing to follow the son.”
“Maybe even more so,” Norwil pointed out. “They’ll follow the family member they’ve got their hands on, as they did in Corwin’s time, and appoint one of themselves regent, maybe. I can see them thinking a thirteen-year-old boy would be easier to control, especially when there’s something as important as this invasion to deal with.”
The old man rubbed his chin. “If the Wings acclaim the son, he’s the Luqs, regardless of what the father might do.”
“That’s the way it’s always been,” Ker agreed.
“So that’s our hope for pushing back the invaders? Get the boy to the Wings and the sooner the better?”
“I don’t see any other way.” Ker met first Norwil’s eyes, then Ganni’s.
“Yet you want to delay this to save your friend?” Norwil said.
Ker sat quiet, chewing her lower lip. “It’s like there’s two things going on.” She took the jewel out of her pouch and set it down on the table. “The invasion and the Prophecy. The jewel might be the link between them, if I can figure out how it works. Back in Gaena, we didn’t have time to find Tel, or see if we could use the jewel to change him back.” We had to leave him behind. “If I can undo what’s been done to him, I could help others. We could get our own people back.”
“It is the Third Sign.” Norwil had that calculating look again. “The Bone of the Griffin.” He turned to Ganni. “She’s the one who speaks with them, so maybe she’s the one who uses their bones?”
• • •
Ganni and Norwil took Ker back to the meeting room. Off to one side, well away from the others, Tel, Pella, and the other remaining soldiers were seated with their backs against the wall, ankles and hands bound in front of them. Tel was watching her with narrowed eyes. Norwil signaled, and two of the Feelers guarding the soldiers pulled Tel to his feet and dragged him over to a seat on the dais, in clear view of the small council, and perhaps two score others, many of whom were armed. Dersay was sitting where Sala once sat.
Ker could also see the old lady, Ara, relaxed in a chair next to Jerek, with the child Larin standing on Ara’s other side. Ara was holding each by the hand—which made Ker purse her lips in a silent whistle. It was one thing to see a dead woman, what did it mean that Jerek, like Larin, could touch her? They looked as though they’d known each other forever. Wynn stood at parade rest just behind Jerek, trying to watch everyone at once. As Ker moved up onto the raised area, Jerek came to her, touching her on the arm as if to be sure of her. “They told us you were all right,” he said, as if to explain why he hadn’t come looking for her.
“They told me the same about you.” Ker bowed her head to the old woman, and got a head tilt and a toothy smile in return.
“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Jerek looked to Ara and back again. “Do you know how old she is?”
Ker blinked, half smiling. “I wasn’t sure it was all right to ask.” He could speak to her as well as touch her. What with that, and his multicolored aura . . .
A cloud passed over Jerek’s face, but cleared away quickly. “She seemed happy to tell me—” he began.
“Did she tell you she’s dead? That no one else can see her?”
Both Ker and Jerek turned around. Tel was much closer to them than they’d realized. Jerek went pale, his eyes staring.
“They didn’t tell you, did they? These are Feelers, boy. You know what that means?”
Jerek’s face hardened. “They did tell me,” he said. “And to you I’m not ‘boy.’ To you I’m ‘Lord Brightwing.’” He glanced at the old woman. “I don’t care if they are Feelers. Do you think I can’t tell good people when I see them? The only person here who’s tried to hu
rt anyone is you.” Larin had come up next to him, and taken his hand. When he looked down at her, she smiled. Jerek nodded and smiled back at her before resuming his place.
A buzz of sound passed through the watchers like a wave. Tel spat on the floor. Someone laughed, but at a sign from Dersay, silence fell again.
Ganni beckoned to her. “As good a time as any, I would think.”
Ker straightened her spine and forced her shoulders to relax. As they approached him, Tel threw himself off the seat, rolling to his knees to crawl away, a look of fierce determination on his face. His guards hauled him up again and set him back on the stool, keeping him there with a hand on each shoulder.
“You hold still, boy, or we hold you still.” Without waiting for a response, Ganni reached out, his hands curved as if he cupped Tel’s face in his palms. Tel’s eyes grew wide.
“Don’t.” Ker put a hand on Ganni’s forearm. “No need to frighten him. He’ll sit still without that, won’t you?”
Tel’s breath shuddered noisily, but he nodded. “I’m not afraid. I’m under the hand of the Sunflower Shekayrin. You can’t do anything to me.”
Ker wasn’t so very sure he was wrong. Her heart was pounding, and her palms were sweaty. She’d thought there couldn’t be anything worse than the look of indifference that had been in Tel’s eyes since he’d been changed in Gaena, but there was. Hate was worse than indifference, after all, no matter what the stories said. She could live with it if Tel didn’t care about her. But to have him hate her was almost more than she could bear.
Except it wasn’t him, it was the jewel. She had to believe that the old Tel, the real Tel, was in him somewhere—overlaid by the net cast by the jewel, but there just the same. And if he wasn’t? Or if she wasn’t able to remove the net and restore Tel’s aura? Then she had nothing to lose, did she? She wiped her hands off on her trousers and took the jewel out of its wrapping. Its facets no longer held the light the way it had done even in the woods at night. She turned it this way and that, but could see no colors in it. Paraste.
Auras sprang up all around her, the colors bright and moving. She could see how the patterns of red lines that caged Tel’s aura matched the faceted pattern of the jewel, but the jewel itself now seemed dead, with no light of its own. A niggle of doubt ran up Ker’s spine. Had she somehow used it up?
The jewel had always been powerful, full of light, in Svann’s hands. As if, she thought now, he’d been recharging it somehow. She thought of the red dust. Was there some connection? Whatever it was, the secret had stayed with Svann, unless there was some way she could repower it?
At that thought, lines of color began reaching out from her aura, and Ganni’s and the others close to her, toward the jewel. She concentrated, and the movement stopped.
“Hah! You can’t use it, can you?”
“What about it, girl? Is he right?” Ganni stood with his arms crossed across his chest.
“I have used it, so no. But it’s empty, like a mill with no water or no wind. We could power it, I think, the magic’s not so different, but—” Ker shook her head. “I’m afraid to experiment. I need something to either repower the jewel safely, or to let me into Tel’s mind the same way I got into the mind of the griffin—”
“What about the griffin?” This was Dersay. “He certainly seems to be able to get into any mind he wants to.”
• • •
The small council led everyone who wished to witness through a set of tunnels Ker had never seen before. Finally, the tunnel began to climb and the temperature to drop. When they got to a place where they actually had to scramble over a pile of rocks to get to a higher level, Ker decided she had to ask.
“Ganni, where are we going?”
<
“Weimerk,” Ker said aloud. This was the first time she’d heard him when she wasn’t tired, or in pain.
<
Ganni grinned. “You hear him, don’t you? Just as you can see Ara. Can you hear the other Far-thinkers as well?”
“No—”
<
Ker moved ahead of Ganni, the griffin’s voice in her head like a line of color leading her toward him. The new level spilled out into a cavelike room open on one side to the cold winter sky. Squinting against the increase of light and wind, she ran toward the griffin preening himself in a sheltered corner.
“Kerida. Nast. It. Has. Been. Too. Long.”
Suddenly, she was enveloped in a sweep of feathers and fur.
“Weimerk.” She coughed as she tried to dislodge a bit of down. The griffin smelled of snow and cold air. “We’ve been speaking for days.”
“But. I. Could. Not. Embrace. You.” His wings unfolded, exposing Ker to the cold air. “Here. Is. Your. Friend. Tel. Cursar.” Weimerk’s tail slashed. “Oh. This. Is. Quite. Bad. He. Tastes. And. Smells. Quite. Wrongly. I’m. Afraid.”
“That’s what I hope you can help me with.” She held out the jewel. “Can you see the pattern of the facets?”
“Of. Course.”
“And you see how the same pattern traps Tel’s aura?”
“Naturally.”
“Can you get it off? Can you free him?”
“It. Is. Not. For. Me. We. Do. Not. Use. Such. Things. You. Must. Do. It. You. Must. Learn. The. Paths. Of. The. Jewel. That. Is. The. Prophecy.”
Ker shut her mouth before her teeth could freeze. “I must do it.” She drew cold air deep into her lungs. “Of course.” Weimerk’s large right eye studied her as she shut her teeth on any further protest. She could see there was no point in arguing with him—and even less in being angry. She didn’t have time.
Ker drummed her fingers on her thigh, and turned to Ganni. “If you helped me, I could show you what to move . . .”
Ganni’s brow furrowed. “With it not physical, I’m not so very sure I can move it. What about Hitterol?”
Hitterol looked intrigued and Midon, normally so quiet, raised two fingers for her attention. “It seems to me—” he began.
“Just a minute.” Norwil held up his hands. “The agreement was we let you try your jewel. Well, we’ve let you, and now it doesn’t work, you want to use us. What does your soldier—what does any of this have to do with the Prophecy?”
Now even Ganni looked uncertain. Ker turned to Ara and Larin, but all she found there were smiles. She clenched her fists, and realized she was still holding the jewel.
“This is the Third Sign,” she said. “This.” She held up the jewel for everyone to see. “This is part of the Prophecy. You heard Weimerk. I have to learn to use it.”
“‘Bone of the griffin,’” Dersay said, smiling and nodding. “That’s what it is. And it’s here, in the Mines and Tunnels.” At this, Norwil’s frown disappeared, and he looked around, smiling.
“If I can restore Tel, I learn how the jewel works, I learn the magic of the Shekayrin, if you help me—” Ker broke off. She wasn’t a Wing Faro, she wasn’t even a full Talent. What could she promise them in exchange for helping Tel?
“I will restore your citizenship.”
With everyone else in the cave she turned and looked at Jerek, standing quietly off to one side with Larin. Now, stepping forward, he looked taller somehow, the planes of his face squarer, more mature. Jerek was right; that was something the Luqs could do. This moment was a turning point for him, Ker realized, as Flashing the body in Camp Oste had been for her. She’d taken on the responsibilities of a Full Talent then, even if she didn’t have the full knowledge and experience.
By stepping forward, Jerek was taking on the weight of the adult world. He glanced at her, and she could see in his eyes that he understood what he was doing. He was the prince. It was his responsibility, his life. She inclined her head in a shallow bow.
“Help us, and you’ll receive full citizenship, with all its
rights and privileges,” he said. “You’ll be free, and safe from any kind of persecution.”
“You can give us this?”
Jerek looked around at all the faces. “I’m Jerek Brightwing. Cousin to the late Luqs, Ruarel the Third, grandchild, like her, to Rolian the Ninth. You help Kerida Nast break the magic of the Shekayrin, and I’ll make you full citizens of the Faraman Polity. What one Luqs can take away, another can restore.”
Ganni took a deep breath and looked around at the small council. Even Midon was smiling.
“What will you need us to do?” Ganni asked.
When Luca Pa’narion and his Feeler companion wandered up to the road from the ruins of what must have been Temlin Hall, Juria Sweetwater raised her arm in acknowledgment of their approach. “Just as I was beginning to wonder if I had to go all the way to the pass before we found you.”
“Took you long enough. I’ve been Flashing you on the road for the last three days.”
“It takes more time to move a Battle Wing than two people.”
“Did the Panther give you any trouble?”
“None. I’ve yet to decide whether that is a good or bad thing.”
“We’ve news. Our girl has succeeded; the prince is free and in the mines.”
The vise that had been squeezing Juria’s heart since she’d closed the gates of Oste behind her released, and she took the first easy breath she’d taken in days. Vindication. For the decision she’d made almost two months ago, when she’d sent her Bears into the Peninsula, and a month ago in sending her people for the prince. For the decision she’d made only days ago.
“We can rest your troops overnight, if you’d like. The griffin tells us there’s now no hurry.”
“The griffin? Tells us?”
“There may be a few things we neglected to mention, yes.”
“Perhaps you should mention them now.”
Paraste.
Ker steeled herself, almost overwhelmed by the colors of Weimerk’s aura. She felt Ganni take her left hand, Hitterol her right. Beyond them, Larin and the others of the small council made up the circle. The world steadied. Ker concentrated on distinguishing between the mass of colors that was Weimerk, and the auras of the others. First, she sorted out the five basic colors of the Gifted—yellow, green, blue, purple, and orange—and the individual colors that marked their Gifts. Her own turquoise, Ganni’s pink, Hitterol’s silver, Midon’s gold, Dersay’s black, Larin’s indigo. The extra coppery sheen she alone shared with Weimerk. Now it was easy to see Tel’s three-colored aura—and even easier to see how it was caged and subdued by the net enclosing it. She wasn’t sure how much the others could see, but that they could see something was obvious.
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