Mary Herbert - City of Sorcerers

Sayyed’s swarthy face, darkly tanned from years of sun and wind, creased into a frown. He knew her well enough to recognize the tightly controlled tension in her expression and the reasons that sometimes brought her to this clearing. “The massacre?” he asked.

She nodded, her gaze leaving his to wander to a place only she could see. When she did not reply, Sayyed gently prompted, “I remember you told me about the first time you had the vision.” Gabria barely moved her head. “This time though, I didn’t see anything. I just heard it.” Suddenly a horn blared again in the distance, and the faint staccato of hoofbeats echoed in the air. Gabria visibly winced.

Tears filled her eyes at the ghostly memories.

“They’re racing on the flats this morning,” Sayyed said softly.

The clanswoman let go of Sayyed’s arms and rubbed at the ache beginning to throb in her temples. Forcefully she brought herself back to reality. She was the daughter of a chieftain, the wife of a chieftain, and a sorceress—she was not a weak-kneed girl to be brought to weeping by the memories of an old tragedy.

Turning her back on the clearing, Gabria made her way down along the riverbank. Sayyed kept pace beside her, satisfied that the worst seemed to be over. Color was returning to her face, and her stride was steady.

“Why did you come here today?” he asked while they walked along the bank. “What brought on that vision?”

“I don’t know,” Gabria replied loudly over the rush of the shallow rapids. “I was looking for Kelene. She was supposed to go with me to visit the Reidhar camp. There is a little boy they think has the talent for magic, but he is too frightened to try his power. Kelene is so good with children; she always wins them over.” Sayyed’s smile was knowing and rueful. “But you couldn’t find her,” he said.

“No. She’s off somewhere with her horse, I guess.” The man cocked an eye toward the distant racing flats where he could see the crowds that had gathered for the day’s racing. He had a very good idea where Gabria’s daughter Kelene had gone. But that still didn’t answer his question of why Gabria had gone to the clearing, and she seemed to be in no hurry to explain.

Together they climbed down the bank and waded across the Isin, Gabria silent and pensive, Sayyed respecting her reticence.

Once on the west bank, they walked downstream toward the second river, the Goldrine, which joined the Isin in a series of easy rapids. The focal point of the clan gatherings, the sacred island of the Tir Samod and its crowning temple of standing stones, lay in the middle of the rivers’ confluence. On an arrow-shaped point of land directly across from the island was the council grove where the huge chieftains’ tent was being raised for the upcoming meetings of the council.

Gabria paused in the shade of an old cottonwood to watch as the men around the tent began to hang the clan banners: gold, brown, indigo, green, black, yellow, gray, purple, orange, light blue, and maroon. One by one they were hung to catch the breeze until only the scarlet banner of Clan Corin was missing. One tent pole was always left empty in honor of the slaughtered clan.

The sorceress stared sadly at the empty space among the banners. “He was trying to warn me,” she murmured as if to herself.

Sayyed was startled. “What?”

“I think Gabran was trying to tell me something. I only heard the sounds of the massacre this time. I couldn’t see anything in the fog. But I heard him say, ‘I’ve got to warn you!’ He’d never said that before.”

“Warn you about what? The massacre? Lord Medb?”

“No, not those. He didn’t say anything like that in my first vision when I was trying to confront Lord Medb.” Gabria hugged her arms close to her sides and tried to ignore the headache that was now pounding like a drum. “What did he mean? Why now?” she wondered aloud.

“If you were anyone else I’d think you were suffering from the heat or too much wine. But your visions always seem to have significance,” Sayyed replied.

Gabria smiled slightly. “If only I knew what it was.”

“Maybe it’s a premonition taking the form of some disaster familiar to you,” he suggested.

The clanswoman’s face looked bleak. “You could be right.”

A familiar shout cut across the grove, and the two people turned to see Lord Athlone come around the back of the council tent and stride toward them, a young boy at his side.

Gabria’s pulse quickened as it always did at the sight of her husband. After twenty-three years of marriage, she still adored him. She watched while he approached, his hand on the shoulder of their youngest son.

At forty-six, a life span that brought many clansmen into old age, Lord Athlone was still in the prime of his power. Tall, muscular, and solid, he wore his unspoken authority as easily as the sword at his side. He was chieftain of Clan Khulinin, the largest and most powerful clan on the plains, and he held the unique position of being the only chieftain who could wield magic. Twenty-four years ago, when clan law strictly forbade the practice of sorcery and clan society was taught to abhor it, that talent would have condemned him to death or exile. But many things had changed since Lord Medb and Gabria resurrected the old arcs of magic. Now Lord Athlone tread a careful path between the growing acceptance of sorcery in the clans and the suspicion and prejudice against it that remained.

Cheerfully the lord chieftain greeted his friend and brushed a kiss on Gabria’s cheek. She smiled at the tickle of his mustache and at the humor in his dark eyes.

“Hi, Mamma. Hi, Sayyed,” her son, Coren, piped up. “I’ve been helping the men set up the tent!”

Athlone said, “I didn’t expect to see you this morning. Have you been to the Reidhar camp already?” Gabria shook her head. “Not yet. I can’t find Kelene.” She kept her expression bland and decided to tell him about her vision in a quieter moment.

Athlone made an irritated noise. “Puppies have more sense of responsibility than that girl. Is she ever going to grow up?”

No one bothered to answer, since the question was one they had all asked at some time in the past few years. Of the four children Gabria had borne, their oldest daughter, Kelene, had always been the most challenging. Unlike her oldest brother, Savaron, and her younger sister, Lymira, Kelene at eighteen rebelled against virtually everything her parents suggested. She was independent, willful, and stubborn. Athlone had seriously considered forcing her to marry or even sending her to another clan for a few years. But Gabria had bid him wait. She could see quite a few of Athlone’s traits, without the strengthening of maturity and wisdom, in Kelene.

Lord Athlone grimaced at the lack of an answer to his question and added, “I guess she’s out with that gelding of hers.”

“That’s not a difficult guess,” Sayyed said. “She probably wants to check the .competition for the Induran tomorrow.”

“I forgot about that,” Athlone admitted.

A hearty laugh burst from Sayyed, and he waved a hand toward the flats. “How could you have forgotten that? Your daughter has talked of nothing for the past year but her gelding and its chances to win that race. My son is probably over there too, goading her into another rage.”

Athlone’s mouth twisted in annoyance. “We should have known better than to expect Kelene’s cooperation when the race is on.” He stopped, his gaze lost in the distance. Some of the irritation eased from his face. “Since the accident,” Athlone went on finally, “she hasn’t even considered her talent.”

“I thought she would turn against horses, not magic. It was not the fault of magic that that brute of a stallion rolled on her,” Sayyed said.