Priestess of the White

by Trudi Canavan

  The vorn slunk toward him, pink tongue lolling from its mouth. A mouth large enough to encompass a man’s head, Adem couldn’t help thinking. He got the arrow nocked, aimed between the eyes of the beast and released.

  The arrow bounced off the vorn’s skull.

  Adem stared at it in disbelief. The animal had leapt backward in surprise.

  “Where are you, sorcerer?” Hakan shouted. “Show yourself!”

  Sorcerer? Adem thought. Magic? The vorns are protected with magic? That is not fair!

  “You do not order me, priest,” a voice replied in a strange accent.

  The vorn whined again and dropped to the ground, rolling onto its side. Adem could see his blade lodged in its belly. He decided he could risk looking away.

  Priests, hunters and porters stood in a group under a hovering spark of light. Vorns ringed them all.

  The elderly priest was crouching at the side of another. Hakan stood staring into the forest. As Adem watched a stranger stepped into the light. Foreign, Adem thought. No race I’ve ever seen. Long pale hair spilled over a black many-layered garment. On his chest lay a large silver pendant in the shape of a five-pointed star.

  “You have killed innocent people, sorcerer,” Hakan accused. “Give yourself up and face the gods’ justice.”

  The sorcerer laughed. “I don’t answer to your gods.”

  “You will,” Hakan said. Sparks of light flashed from the priest toward the foreigner. Just before they reached their target they skittered aside and struck the trees, tearing bark from the trunks. Adem backed away. It was never wise to remain close to a magical battle. The injured vorn growled, reminding him that other vorns were about. He stopped, uncertain as to whether he should take his chances with a hunt of overgrown vorns or remain near the magical contest.

  “Your magic is small, priest,” the foreigner said.

  The air rippled and Hakan staggered backward and threw up his hands. Adem could see a faint shimmer in the air forming an arc that surrounded the priest and his men. Hakan didn’t return the attack. It looked as if all his effort was going into protecting himself and the men around him.

  One of the trackers standing behind the priests turned and bolted. He took only two steps before he screamed and fell to the ground. Adem stared in horror at the man’s legs. They were twisted in odd directions and blood was quickly soaking through his trousers.

  Adem felt his mouth go dry. If this is what the sorcerer does to those outside the barrier, perhaps I had better stay still and hope he doesn’t notice me. He slowly crouched beside a bush, where he could still see the battle. The arc around the priests and hunters had spread to form a sphere encompassing all. The foreign sorcerer chuckled quietly to himself, a sound that sent a shiver down Adem’s spine.

  “Surrender, priest. You will not win.” He extended a hand and curled his fingers as if clutching something before him.

  “Never,” Hakan gasped.

  The sorcerer shook his hand. Adem went cold as the sphere jerked about. The men within stumbled and fell to their knees. Hakan clutched his head and gave a wordless cry. The elderly priest jumped to his feet and grabbed Hakan’s shoulder. Adem saw Hakan’s face relax a little and heard the other priest gasp. At the same time the sphere flickered.

  Hakan collapsed. Looking closely, Adem felt his heart freeze as he saw the elderly priest’s lips moving. He caught snatches of a prayer and felt the despair in the words.

  The priest believed they were going to die.

  I have to get out of here.

  Rising, Adem took a few steps away from the battle.

  “That is your choice,” the sorcerer said.

  Adem glanced back in time to see the sorcerer’s extended hand flex then close into a fist. There was a cry from the elderly priest. A cry that was cut off. The light went out and a deathly silence followed.

  Slowly Adem’s eyes adjusted to the faint glimmer of early dawn. He found himself staring at the silent place where priests and hunters had stood, and could not persuade his eyes to move away from the bloody mound of crushed limbs, weapons, packs and priests’ circs, not even as his stomach heaved its contents onto the ground.

  There was an animal whine nearby. A voice spoke strange words in soothing tones. Adem watched as vorns gathered around the sorcerer to be petted. Then the injured vorn whined again and the sorcerer looked up, straight into Adem’s eyes.

  Though he knew there was no hope, Adem ran.

  As Auraya entered Juran’s room she met the eyes of each of the other White. Juran had woken her a short while before so that she could link with the priests fighting the sorcerer. She had sensed the minds of the other White, and felt their shock and dismay.

  “I’m sorry, Auraya,” Juran said. “If I had known the confrontation was going to end so badly I would not have woken you.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t apologize, Juran. You could not have known how it would turn out, and it’s no revelation to me that terrible things happen in this world—though I do appreciate your concern.”

  He ushered her to a chair. “Such a waste,” he murmured. He began to pace the room. “I should not have sent them. I should have investigated myself.”

  “You could not have known this sorcerer was so powerful,” Dyara repeated. “Stop blaming yourself and sit down.”

  Auraya glanced at Dyara, amused despite the seriousness of the moment to hear her take such a stern tone with Juran. The White leader did not appear to mind. He dropped into his chair and sighed heavily.

  “Who is this sorcerer?” Rian asked.

  “A Pentadrian,” Mairae replied. “There is a sketch of the star pendant in the report. They’re worn by Servants of the Gods.”

  “A powerful sorcerer priest,” Dyara added.

  Juran nodded slowly. “You’re right. So why is he here?”

  “Not to propose trade or forge an alliance, it seems,” Mairae said.

  “No,” Dyara agreed. “We have to consider whether he was sent here or is acting on his own. Either way, he must be dealt with, and we cannot risk sending a high priest or priestess to confront him.”

  Rian nodded. “One of us must go.”

  “Yes.” Juran glanced at each of the White in turn. “Whoever does will be absent some weeks. Auraya hasn’t completed her training yet. Mairae is occupied with the Somreyans. Dyara is training Auraya. I would go myself, but…” He turned to Rian. “You have not dealt with a sorcerer before. Do you have the time?”

  Rian smiled grimly. “Of course not, but I will make time. The world needs to be rid of this Pentadrian and his vorns.”

  Juran nodded. “Then take one of the Bearers and go.”

  Rian straightened. A gleam had entered his gaze. As the young man rose and stalked from the room, Auraya felt a moment’s wry sympathy for the Pentadrian sorcerer. From what she had seen so far, all but the more severe rumors of Rian’s ruthless fanaticism were true.

  6

  “What do you think of Dreamweavers, Danjin Spear?” Danjin looked up in surprise. He was sitting opposite Auraya at the large table in her reception room, helping her examine the terms of the proposed alliance with Somrey.

  Auraya met his eyes steadily. He thought back to the day news of her mother’s death had arrived. At her bidding he had sought the location of the man who had delivered the message to the Temple. To his surprise, the man was a Dreamweaver.

  Later he had been even more surprised to learn that Auraya had visited the man in disguise. He wasn’t sure if he was more disturbed by the idea of a White paying a social visit to a Dreamweaver, or that Auraya had tried to do so secretly—which indicated she knew she was doing something that might be considered ill-advised or inappropriate.

  Of course, she was reading all this from his mind right now. She must also know that he had looked into her past and learned of her childhood friendship with Dreamweaver Leiard and that she had been known in the priesthood for her sympathetic view of the heathens. She would have seen that he
r second meeting with the Dreamweaver had been noted, and that he had heard people, inside and outside the Temple, gossiping about it. She also had to know that he didn’t respect or like Dreamweavers.

  In the weeks since he had found Leiard she had not discussed Dreamweavers with him at all. Now that she was working on the Somreyan problem they could not avoid the subject any longer. He had to be honest. There was no point pretending he agreed with her.

  “I don’t think much of them, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “They are at best pitiful, and at worst untrustworthy.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Why pitiful?”

  “I guess because they are so few and so despised. And misguided. They do not serve the gods, so their souls die when their body does.”

  “Why untrustworthy?”

  “Their Gifts—some of them—enable them to mess about with people’s minds.” He hesitated as he realized he was repeating what his father had always said. Were these truly his own opinions? “They can torment their enemies with nightmares, for example.”

  She smiled faintly. “Have you ever heard of a Dreamweaver doing so?”

  He hesitated again. “No,” he admitted. “But then there are so few now. I don’t think they’d dare.”

  Auraya’s smile widened. “Have you ever heard of a Dreamweaver doing something to earn them the label ‘untrustworthy’?”

  He nodded. “Some years ago a Dreamweaver poisoned a patient.”

  The smile vanished and she looked away. “Yes, I studied that case.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “As part of your training?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ve always taken an interest in crimes that involve Dreamweavers.”

  “What…what did you make of it?”

  She grimaced. “That the Dreamweaver was guilty. She confessed to it, but I wanted to be sure she wasn’t blackmailed or beaten into doing so. I looked to the reaction of other Dreamweavers for clues. They turned from her. I found that to be the most convincing evidence of her guilt.”

  Danjin was intrigued. “They might have turned from her to protect themselves.”

  “No. I think Dreamweavers know when another is guilty of a crime. When one is falsely accused—and some of the trials have been disgustingly transparent—they defend them in their own way. The accused is calm, even when they know they are to be executed. But when the accused is guilty, not a word is spoken in their defense. This woman was frantic,” Auraya shook her head slowly, “and angry. She raged against her own people.”

  “I heard that she asked for garpa so she could avoid sleeping.” Danjin shuddered. “If they are willing to torment one of their own, what might they do to an enemy?”

  “Why do you assume they were tormenting her? She might have wanted to avoid her own dreams.”

  “She was a Dreamweaver. Surely she had control of her own dreams.”

  “Again, you can only assume so.” Auraya smiled. “You judge them untrustworthy because they have the ability to harm others. Just because they can, doesn’t mean they will. I could snuff out your life with a thought, but you trust me not to.”

  He stared at her, disturbed at her casual mention of her gods-given powers. She held his gaze. He looked down at the table. “I know you wouldn’t.”

  “So perhaps you should reserve your judgment of each Dreamweaver until you know him or her personally.”

  He nodded. “You’re right, of course. But I cannot trust them any more than I would trust a stranger.”

  She chuckled. “Nor I. Or even those I think I know, as sometimes people I thought I knew well have demonstrated a meanness or callousness that I hadn’t realized they were capable of.” She looked down at the scroll spread before her. “I value your views even if I don’t agree with them, Danjin. I am finding myself alone in my perspective on this matter. I am no Dreamweaver. My understanding of them is proving to be limited. Neither am I a typical Circlian, who distrusts Dreamweavers at best and actively persecutes them at worst. I need to understand all perspectives if I am to suggest ways for Mairae to persuade the Somreyans into forming an alliance with us.”

  Danjin noted the crease that had formed between her brows as she spoke. When he had been offered this position, Dyara had assured him that Auraya would not be given any difficult tasks during her first few years as a White. It seemed this task had found her.

  Her knowledge of Dreamweavers made her the best White for it, however. Maybe this was why the White were allowing it to become common knowledge that the newest White was tolerant of, if not supportive of, heathens. What effect would that have in the long term? While the law dictated that seeking a Dreamweaver’s services was a crime, so many people ignored it that few were ever punished. Would Auraya’s tolerance of Dreamweavers encourage more people to defy the law?

  Auraya said nothing. Her attention had returned to the alliance.

  “Which terms did the Somreyans initially protest against?”

  Danjin had anticipated this question. Bringing a wax tablet closer, he recited a long list of changes to the terms of the alliance. The last third were entirely to do with Dreamweaver matters.

  “These aren’t new terms, are they? They’ve always been in the alliance.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t the Somreyans protest about them in the beginning?”

  Danjin shrugged. “As larger matters are settled, smaller ones become more noticeable. Or so they say.”

  “And they have been noticing them one at a time?” Her voice was heavy with skepticism.

  He chuckled. “Every time one matter is resolved, they protest against another.”

  “Are they delaying, then? Is there any reason you can see for the Council of Elders to put off signing? Or is it only the Dreamweavers who want to delay or stop the alliance?”

  “I don’t know. Mairae feels certain that most of the council want the alliance.”

  Auraya drummed her fingers on the table. “So either they are unhappy with the small matters and are presenting them one by one in order to avoid any being tackled with less seriousness in the shadow of others, or they are simply messing us about. Patience will overcome the first possibility. To overcome the other…”

  “Nothing will overcome the other. Nothing but direct interference in Somreyan politics.”

  “I don’t think we have to go that far. We simply have to reduce the power of the Dreamweaver elder.”

  Danjin stared at her in surprise. This was not something he’d expect from a Dreamweaver sympathizer.

  “How?”

  “By giving some of that power to another Dreamweaver.”

  “The council can only contain one representative of each religion. How can you change that without influencing Somreyan politics?”

  “I don’t mean to put two Dreamweavers in the council, Danjin. This would be a separate position.”

  “Chosen by whom?”

  “By the White.”

  “The Somreyans wouldn’t accept it!”

  “They’d have no choice. It would have nothing to do with them.”

  Danjin narrowed his eyes. “All right. You have me mystified. Just tell me.”

  She chuckled. “Clearly the White need an adviser on Dreamweaver affairs.”

  “And this adviser would be a Dreamweaver?”

  “Of course. The Somreyan Dreamweavers would never listen to a Circlian elected to the position.”

  Danjin nodded slowly as he considered the advantages of this arrangement. “I see. First, the Dreamweavers will be mollified. By hiring one of them as an adviser, the White acknowledge that Dreamweavers have some value. The adviser tackles face-to-face discussion over the terms of the alliance so that, faced with one of their own, the Dreamweaver elder is forced to negotiate sensibly rather than reactively.”

  “And our adviser could make suggestions on how the terms of the alliance might be altered to reduce the number of protests, and therefore speed the process,” Auraya added.

  What are th
e disadvantages, then? Danjin asked himself. What are the weaknesses in this plan?

  “You will have to take care that this adviser’s goals are not contrary to your own,” he warned. “He or she might suggest changes to the alliance that benefit their people and prove to have ill consequences for us.”

  “He or she would have to be as unaware of those consequences as I,” she replied, tapping her forehead. “There are only four people in the world who can lie to me.”

  Danjin felt a thrill at this piece of information. So the White could not read each other’s mind. He had always suspected it was so.

  “Of course, it may be that no Dreamweaver will agree to work with us,” he warned.

  She smiled.

  “Do you have anyone in mind?” Even as he asked, he knew the answer.

  “Of course. Naturally, I’d want to work with someone I feel I can trust. Who better, then, than the Dreamweaver I know personally?”

  As the platten trundled away, Auraya took in her surroundings. She and Dyara were in a wide, flat space between rows of cultivated trees. Long grass swayed in the breeze. In the distance a priest and priestess cantered around a field on a large white reyer. Both looked familiar.

  “Is that…?”

  “Juran and Mairae,” Dyara answered. “We call the last day of the month Training Day because it’s the day we work with the Bearers. Once you have established a link with one, you need to maintain it.”

  “Is that what I’ll be doing today?”

  Dyara shook her head. “No. You will have to learn to ride eventually, but it is not a high priority. It is more important to teach you how to use your new Gifts.”

  The two reyer in the distance wheeled in a complicated-looking maneuver, their legs moving in unison. Auraya could not imagine herself managing to remain on a reyer’s back while it twisted about like that. She hoped her relief at the news her feet would remain on the ground wasn’t too obvious.