Lynn Flewelling - The Oracle's Queen

“They fear your kind, and your magic. Neither our wizards nor our priests can kill so easily as you.”

“Or heal as well,” Mahti pointed out.

“So, why are you here? To finish Lhel’s work?”

“The Mother marked me for long traveling.” He stroked a hand down the length of his oo’lu to the black, hand-shaped mark near the end. “My first vision of my traveling time was of Lhel, standing with that girl, and you. That was in the quarter of melting snows, and all this time since, I’ve been coming to find you.”

“I see. But why does your goddess want her witches to help us?”

Mahti gave him a wry smile. “For many years your people have treated my people like animals, hunting us down and chasing us away from our sacred places by the sea. I, too, have said often to the Mother, ‘Why help our oppressors?’ Her answer is this girl, and perhaps you yourself. You both honored Lhel, and were her friends. Tamír-Who-Was-A-Boy greeted me with an open hand, and made me welcome, even as I saw others in this great house make signs and spit on the floor. This queen of yours, she might make her people treat the Retha’noi better.”

“I believe she will, if she can. She has a kind heart and yearns for peace.”

“And you? You take our magic and do not call it necromancy. That boy upstairs was wrong. I know what necromancy is: an unclean magic. The Retha’noi are not an unclean people.”

“Lhel taught me that.” It still shamed him, how they’d underestimated the woman at first. “But it’s difficult for most Skalans to perceive the difference, because you also use blood and control the dead.”

“You can teach others the truth. I will help you if you will keep them from killing me first.”

“I’ll try. Now, about what you said to Tamír; can you make her demon twin go away?”

Mahti shrugged. “It wasn’t my magic that made him, and he is more than just a ghost. Demon souls like those are difficult to make magic on. Sometimes it’s better just to let them alone.”

“Tamír is haunted by another ghost, that of her mother, who took her own life. She’s very strong and very angry. She’s one who can touch the living, and seeks to hurt them.”

“Spirits like that are for women’s magic to deal with. That’s why your mistress sought out a woman witch rather than a man. We deal mostly with the living. Is the ghost in this house?”

“No. She haunts the place where she died.”

Mahti shrugged. “That is her choice. I am here for the girl.”

There was a knock at the door, and Tamír came in. “Pardon me for interrupting, Arkoniel, but Melissandra said you two were in here.”

“Please, come in,” said Arkoniel.

She sat down by Arkoniel and gazed at the witch a moment in silence. “Lhel came to you, as a ghost.”

“Yes.”

“She sent you specially to find me?”

Arkoniel translated that, and Mahti nodded.

“Why?”

Mahti glanced at Arkoniel, then shrugged. “To help you, so you not hurt Retha’noi.”

“I have no intention of hurting your people, as long as they remain peaceful toward mine.” She paused and her eyes grew sad. “Do you know how Lhel died?”

“She not tell me. But she is not angry spirit. Peaceful.”

Tamír smiled a little at that. “I’m glad.”

“We were just discussing what brought Mahti here,” said Arkoniel. “He’s from somewhere in the western mountains.”

“West? How far west?”

“Almost to the Osiat, apparently.”

She went to the witch and knelt in front of him. “I have visions, too, and dreams of the west. Can you help me with those?”

“I try. What you see?”

“Arkoniel, do you have anything to draw with?”

The wizard went to a table covered in magical paraphernalia and fished around in the mess until he found a lump of chalk. He guessed what she was thinking, but it seemed rather improbable.

Tamír cleared away some of the rushes strewn over the floor and began drawing on the stone paving beneath. “I see a place, and I know it’s on the western coast below Cirna. There’s a deep harbor guarded by two islands, like this.” She drew them. “And a very high cliff above it. That’s where I’m standing in the dream. And if I look back, I can see open country and mountains in the distance.”

“How far away mountains?” asked Mahti.

“I’m not sure. Maybe a day’s ride?”

“And this?” He pointed to the blank floor beyond the little ovals she’d drawn for islands. “This is western sea?” Mahti stared down at the map, chewing at a hangnail. “I know this place.”

“You can tell, just from this?” asked Arkoniel.

“I not lie. I have been to this place. I show.”

He brought his fist up in front of his face, closed his eyes, and began to mutter to himself. Arkoniel felt the prickle of magic gathering even before the pattern of intricate black lines appeared on the witch’s hands and face. He recognized the spell.

Mahti blew into his fist and made a ring with his thumb and forefinger. A disk of light took shape, and then grew as he framed it with his other hand and drew it larger, to the size of a platter. They could hear the call of seabirds through it and hear the wash of the tide.

“Master, he knows your window spell!” Wythnir exclaimed softly.

Through the window lay a view from atop a high cliff overlooking the sea just as Tamír had described. It was dark already here in Atyion, but there the setting sun still cast a coppery trail across the waves under a cloudy sky. The ground at the top of the cliff was broken and overgrown with long grass. Huge flocks of gulls sailed against the orange sky. Their cries filled Arkoniel’s room. He half expected to smell the sea breeze and feel it against his face.

Mahti moved slightly and the view changed with dizzying swiftness, so that they were looking over the edge to a deep harbor far below.

“That’s it!” Tamír exclaimed softly, and Arkoniel had to catch her by the arm to keep her from leaning too close to the aperture. “Maybe this is why Lhel brought you to me, rather than someone else.”

“Remoni , we call it,” Mahti told her. “Mean ‘good water.’ Good to drink, out of the ground.”

“Springs?”

Arkoniel interpreted and Mahti nodded. “Many springs. Much good water.”

“Look, see how there’s enough land at the base of the cliffs for a town?” said Tamír. “A citadel on the cliffs above would be impossible to attack the way Ero was. Where is this place, Mahti? Is it near Cirna?”

“I don’t know your seer-na.”

Arkoniel cast a window spell of his own, showing him the fortress at Cirna, on its narrow strip of ground.

“I know this place! I came close by it when I was looking for Caliel and his friends,” he explained in his own language, leaving Arkoniel to translate for Tamír. “But I saw the great house in a vision, too. Caliel and the others came from there. There’s evil living in that house, and great sadness, too.”

“How far is Remoni from there?”

“Three, maybe four days’ long walk? You southlanders don’t go there, to Remoni. We still have sacred places by this sea. Boats come into the protected water behind the islands sometimes, when people come to fish, but no one lives there. Why does she want to go there?”

“What’s he saying?” Tamír asked.

Arkoniel explained.

“It might be only two days, riding hard,” she mused. “Tell him I’m going to build a new city there. Will he guide me?”

Arkoniel translated, but Mahti was rubbing his eyes now, as if they hurt him. “Need sleep. I go there.” He pointed out the window at the garden. “Too many time in this house. Need sky, and the ground.”