by Marie Brown
friend's name?"
"Kama. She's a needlewoman, one of the best, and-you know her!"
The woman had smiled at the sound of Kama's name. Wonderful!
"Yes, I know Kama. You heard correctly, she has been with us for a while now. Who shall I say is here for her?"
"My name is Lorrine."
The words had to fight themselves past a writhing ball of heart in Lorrine's throat. She was here, Kama was here, and soon she'd have to face that beautiful woman and explain why she'd been such a horrible, rotten person. . . and most likely, deal with a well-deserved rejection. Who was she, really, to just come tittuping back in here and expect things to go back to normal?
"Oh," the woman said, face gone abruptly blank. "Oh, my! Well. Wait here, Lorrine. I will go inform Kama of your arrival."
Lorrine watched her get up, and ordinary looking woman in a plain yellow day dress. What made her react like that? If Kama had told these people to keep watch for Lorrine, was that a good thing or a bad thing? And what in the world had possessed her to come here without bothering to clean up first? She dragged her fingers through her long hair, grimacing as they caught in little knots. It'd been a windy day, of course she was tangled.
Lorrine gave herself a small shake and ordered herself to quit panicking. She spotted a wooden bench opposite the desk and dropped her pack on it. Her hands shook as she dug out her comb. But she still managed to comb the knots out of her hair before the receptionist returned.
Alone.
The disappointment was so strong Lorrine swayed a bit, as a wave of dizziness swept over her.
"Kama is in the middle of a class right now, Lorrine," the receptionist said, and her tone held a bit more warmth now. Lorrine seized desperately on that tiny indicator as a positive sign. "But when she is done, she will come see you. Please, come with me. You look like you've been traveling. Have you eaten? No? Then we will stop by the kitchens, on the way to the garden."
Apology
Kama arrived after Lorrine had finished her meal and prowled the garden restlessly. For a brief moment, Lorrine had no idea who the stately, poised woman in the oddly cut dress could be. Then she recognized Kama.
"Kama? What did you do to your hair!"
Kama raised a hand and patted her shoulder-length locks. "I cut it. Hello, Lorrine."
The world fell away, most especially the ground under her feet. Daydreams and memories had nothing on the reality of seeing the living, breathing woman in front of her.
She looked. . . different. A bit slimmer, with. . . were those really freckles? Kama? She never allowed the sun to hit her bare skin. No hair. A very strange cut to her dress, which clung to her body in a way that thoroughly distracted Lorrine. Not to mention the dress itself was scandalously short, ending as it did on an an uneven hemline where the shortest part almost showed her knees and the longest part brushed the back of her calves.
"Well, Lorrine? Did you wish to speak to me, or have you returned to my life simply to stare at my legs?"
"My apologies, Kama," Lorrine said, and wondered at herself. What a ridiculous reaction. When was the last time she'd been speechless? "I was merely taking in all the ways in which you've changed."
"Not hardly, you weren't," Kama said, with a slight toss of her short hair. "My physical appearance has not changed anywhere near as much as what I keep inside. It's been two annums, Lorrine."
"What? Impossible! How could it be two annums? I just left. . . I don't even know when I left. But it couldn't have been two annums."
Somehow, without visibly changing her smooth expression, Kama looked angry. Very angry. "Yes, Lorrine. Two annums. And a lot has happened in that time, much of it not pleasant, none of which would have happened had you not done what you did."
"I'm sorry," Lorrine whispered, still trying to add up time in her head to come up with two annums. She wasn't entirely certain how long she'd been with Derfek. They'd ridden the southwestern part of the continent, where seasons blended one into the other with little variation. Even here in Eirian, only the type of storms marked seasonal change, so perhaps she had a valid excuse for letting time get away from her. "Kama, I'm so sorry. I was a fool. I hurt you, and that is unforgivable. And worse, I did it on purpose, because I was afraid of the feelings I had for you."
"What's this? An apology? Now I know this can't be real. Perhaps I should just wake up, end this dream now."
Her body language still all but shouted anger. The tone of her voice was sharp and biting, utterly unlike Kama's usual gentle tones. But something in her eyes made Lorrine feel like maybe this encounter might be salvaged. So she drew herself upright, shaking off the dreadful weight of her guilt and taking advantage of her extra inches of height. It helped to feel tall and strong, rather than like a stepped on puppy.
"Yes, I apologize. I have long regretted my own actions. I came to realize what a fool I'd been, in so many ways. I know it is no true reason, but I wished to tell you what motivated me to run off with Derfek. It was a spell, Kama, a controlling spell built right into the amulet he wore at all times. He used it to cloud the minds of women and assure that they thought of no one and no thing other than him. That doesn't excuse my behavior that night, when I was so frightened of kissing you," and wasn't that hard to say out loud! "But perhaps knowing that it wasn't entirely my fault will make you willing to speak to me again in the future."
Kama looked at her for the space of three agonized heartbeats, then turned abruptly and walked down the narrow path of white rock. Lorrine watched her uncertainly. Not leaving, merely moving deeper into the courtyard garden. Maybe. . . Lorrine followed, so off-balance that she clutched at her crystal, wincing a bit as the gesture reminded her of Derfek.
"I came here a lot, at first," Kama said, pausing to touch a frilly pink and white bloom. "When the world seemed nothing but an empty wasteland, and I missed you more than I would miss a part of my body. It hurt, Lorrine, but I survived. I have found other things to fill my life with. Skills. Responsibilities. People that don't hurt me. A lovely companion who does not panic and run when we kiss."
Lorrine's heart sank. That's it, then. Damn.
"Good," she said, only her fierce grip on Biao Tanu's crystal holding her voice steady. After all, she had something of a life outside Kama, as well. She saw some sort of disturbance off to the side, some movement, but ignored it in favor of her own personal disturbance. "I am happy for you. Then I will deliver the message meant for you and be on my way."
Kama looked at her sharply. "Message? What message? And by the gods, Lorrine, when did you, of all people, become a paladin?"
"What?" Lorrine cocked her head quizzically. "What makes you say that? I'm no paladin! Paladins are pure myth. Nobody's a paladin."
"You're glowing. You're holding a gem that's blazing with pure divine energy. And you bear the mark of an ancient goddess, one unfamiliar to me, but powerful all the same. That sounds like a paladin to me."
"I'm no paladin," Lorrine insisted, although she wondered. Paladins were mythical people chosen by gods to do their works out in the world. They only existed in tales. No one had ever seen a real live paladin. But hadn't she made precisely that same agreement with Biao Tanu? To do her work in the world, in exchange for protection from evil and spells? "The whole notion is ridiculous. Paladins are noble. I'm just. . . I'm just me. I mean, yes, maybe I did make an agreement with a goddess, and maybe I do glow sometimes, but that doesn't make me a paladin. Anyway, that's neither here nor there."
"Fine. Deny the obvious, yet again. Very like you, Lorrine. You mentioned a message?"
"Yes. In my travels, I ran across. . . I don't even know how to describe it."
Suddenly, Lorrine was there again, in the miserably cold rain, pounding the aged door open with her dagger.
"I sought shelter from a storm in an old ruin of some sort. I never did explore it, so I don't really know what kind of place it was, but it kept me out of the rain. And in the night, some strange shadow-beings woke me up and demand
ed I find you and tell you that they are waiting for you."
"What?"
"They are waiting for you," Lorrine repeated. "These shadows called you their Golden Lyrebird and laid a geas on me, demanding I go fetch you to them. The geas nearly ran me into the ground before the power of Biao Tanu broke me free of it. But even without the magical compulsion, I have come to relay the message. There are shadow beings waiting for you in an underground pit, way up north."
"Biao Tanu?" Kama's eyes widened. "Sweet gods, Lorrine, you never make things easy! The Mother certainly isn't going to like this, not one bit!"
"Rest easy, Kama," a new voice said. "You, of all people, should understand that I am fully capable of controlling myself when it comes to the ancient enemies of the First Goddess."
Lorrine could scarcely believe her eyes. The voice came from a woman wrapped from head to toe in a heavy mass of grey fabric. True, she hadn't been born here, but even a new arrival to Eirian learned quickly that seeing a woman shrouded like that had huge significance. Although the followers of the First Goddess were often harrassed and ridiculed for some of their beliefs, not one person could deny the sheer power the First afforded her favored followers.
"Sorry, Mother," Kama replied, recomposing her face and voice. "The arrival of my former friend has put me off kilter."
Lorrine winced at the words former friend.
"Still, you should know better than
