Douglas Niles - Circle at center

“The lands of the Maya,” Natac grasped. “I have heard of that place, those people… your people?”

She nodded, her violet eyes alight with remembrance-of pain or pleasure, Natac could not discern.

“How did you come here?”

Miradel drew a breath, those slender shoulders rising. “I, too, was given to false gods… Still a virgin, I was thrown into a well and drowned, in an effort to keep the water from draining away.” She laughed sharply, bitterly. “I failed.”

“But I know of the magic you used to bring me here. How did…?”

Now she smiled. “I came as all druids came, brought before the Worldweaver in the Center of Everything. I was birthed before her whole and adult, and granted a life on Nayve in return for… things that had happened, that I had done, on Earth.”

“What could you have done in such a short life?” he asked, not accusingly, but very curious.

“It was not just one life. Humans live a multitude of times, and each time they are given the chance to be proved worthy of the Goddess’s gift. Those she rewards she brings to Nayve as druids.”

And some druids bring warriors here, he remembered, completing the cycle in his own thoughts. Yet that still left the gnawing question: Why had she made such a sacrifice, thrown away eternal life, to bring him here?

The candle abruptly sputtered and began to fade. Miradel put the crystal down and once again Natac was looking at a plain white wall, a surface marred by shifting shadow as the wick fizzled away. When the druid pushed the door open, he was startled by the strength of the light, and was forced to squint as he followed her through the kitchen and out onto the terrace. All the while he was thinking, analyzing what he had seen.

“The men riding the horses… it’s not just the speed of movement that give them a great advantage, but the combined weight of the animal and man in the charge. It must be terrifying to stand in the path of such an attack-and if you did stand, you’d probably die.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about the weapons that spew smoke. They must hurl solid objects as well, do they not?”

“You are very perceptive,” Miradel said, with a smile of self-satisfaction. “Yes. The large ones are called cannons, and the small ones are arquebuses. Each hurls a projectile, the cannon shooting a large stone or ball of metal that can crush wood and sink ships. The arquebus shoots a small stone, or a pellet made of metal-and that missile is enough to pierce flesh, break bones, and puncture hearts.”

“Can cannons be moved without a ship?”

“It is difficult,” Miradel allowed, “though-and this is the way of humans-the weapons are getting smaller and more powerful as time goes on. Sometimes a cannon will be loaded with a whole bucketful of small pebbles and bits of metal. When it is fired into a mass of people it can wreak horrible destruction.”

“And our warriors, Tlaxcalan, Aztec, all of us, fight in tight ranks.” Natac felt a growing sense of shock. “Truly, Tlaxcala is doomed-You are right, even the Aztecs are doomed.” He looked at her in despair, self-pity tearing at him. He choked out the words, biting back the strength of his own anguish. “It will be the end of my people-and I am condemned to watch it!”

The druid merely shrugged. “It may not be the end of the people in your world-but without a doubt the gods of the Aztecs will be thrown down, and perhaps that is not such a bad thing. The priests who will come with the Europeans have their own foibles, and they, too, will wage war justified by the commands of their god. But they will not rip the hearts out of their captives just to ensure that the sun comes up.”

“But those priests, too, worship false gods?”

“All gods are false… they are creations of people, stories and beliefs invented because of some human need to claim understanding.”

“You yourself talk about a Goddess-the Worldweaver!” Natac challenged. “You said that it was her tapestry we saw! And now you claim that all gods are false!”

Miradel shook her head, undaunted by his accusation. “I meant all gods of Earth. The Worldweaver dwells at the Center of Everything, and she alone is real.”

Natac would have argued longer but they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming through the villa. “Miradel?” The word was called out in a woman’s voice.

“Belynda?” The druid turned away from Natac.

The newcomer, Natac saw, was a woman with hair so blond it was almost white. Her eyes widened at the sight of Miradel, but the rest of her expression remained bland. If she was shocked by the aged appearance of the druid, she did a good job of covering it up.

“I… I was going to send you word, after a little more time passed,” Miradel said softly.

“Cillia announced the news in the Senate forum,” Belynda said bluntly. “I came as soon as I heard.”

Natac was conscious of the other woman’s eyes on him, cool and appraising. He flushed with shame, sensing that this was a friend of Miradel’s-surely she must be blaming him for the doom that had fallen upon the druid. Yet he could discern little emotion in those wide, almond-shaped eyes. Despite his embarrassment, he stared back, realizing that there were other things that were unusual about this woman.

Her ears were pointed in the lobe, he saw, like Fallon’s. That cascading array of white-gold hair was bound by a circlet of silver wire, and her face seemed unusually narrow-though she was unquestionably beautiful to behold. Yet, despite the fact that he had now seen humans with faces of fur, and with skin of darkest black or pale white, there was something different about this person.

He wondered if it was her lack of emotion, and decided that was it. Miradel’s breath had caught in her throat at the sight of Belynda, and Natac saw the trembling of her shoulders, knew the druid was fighting to suppress an expression of her feeling. Belynda was making no such effort-in the frank examination of Miradel’s lined face, or her cool appraisal of the warrior whose summoning had thus aged her, she looked as though she might have been examining something of utterly no import.

“Warrior Natac,” Miradel said, stepping back to look at him. He saw the emotion in her eyes, was startled to recognize it as pride. She was proud of him! Again he felt that staggering weight of guilt, unworthiness-why?

“This is my friend Belynda of Argentian… She is a sage-ambassador of the elves.”

“I greet you, Belynda of Argentian,” Natac said with a bow, even as his mind digested the news. So she wasn’t human after all-she was an elf! And Fallon was too, of course. The word had some intrinsic meaning to him, merely because of his familiarity with his new language, but he resolved to ask Miradel many more questions when he had a chance.

“And you, Warrior Natac,” Belynda replied, still in that cool, distant tone. “I can only hope my friend has chosen wisely.”

“I hope the same thing, lady,” he replied sincerely.

“Natac has encountered Fionn and Owen,” Miradel said. “In fact, he got them to stop brawling long enough to have a conversation.”

“A brief conversation,” Natac amended.

“I think this warrior may be different from the others,” the druid said, again with that sense of pride that made him squirm.

“I see.” Belynda looked into Miradel’s eyes. “Why did you do it, my friend? When you knew the costs, and the risks… and you know the spell has been forbidden by your own council?” It was as if Natac weren’t there as she sought for an answer. Yet he listened intently, at least as anxious for the answer as was the elfwoman who asked the question.

“I will tell you,” the druid said. “Tell you both… but before I do, there is something that I would like to discuss with you.”