Carol Berg - Son of Avonar

“And yet, our people were welcomed everywhere, for their only desire was to spend their power for good. Some could infuse new life into herds and crops. Others could build skillfully and beautifully. They could make light or fire from nothing… well, their talents could be applied to so many things.”

Karon’s face was sculpted by the firelight as he spun his tale of wonder, his eyes riveted on the orange flames as if the only way he could proceed was to convince himself that no one was listening.

“The world was much as it is now. Greed and ambition set people against people, and a sorcerer’s talents were too valuable to ignore when battle was to be joined. Most refused to join the service of the local warlords. To use their power for destruction violated everything the J’Ettanne believed. But the warlords tried to force them by taking their families hostage or burning their homes. Even if a man aided his lord willingly, he might find himself set against an army wherein his cousin, or his brother, or his sister was forced to serve.

“And so a group joined together, calling themselves the Free Hand of the J’Ettanne, determined that the J’Ettanne be a people who would speak for themselves, not subject to any lord. Deep in the mountains that you call the Dorian Wall lay an ancient stronghold that J’Ettanni legend said was a place sacred to our people. The Free Hand rebuilt the stronghold so that all could have a refuge in time of trouble. The secret of its location was closely guarded, passed carefully from one to another of the Free Hand, who swore on the lives of their children to keep it. They couldn’t allow the warlords to discover it.

“About the time the rebuilding was done, there came a split in the Free Hand. A faction calling themselves the Closed Hand thought it was enough for us to have a safe haven, so individuals could choose to serve the warlords or not. Another group, called the Open Hand, looked beyond our own needs and asked why should peasants or knights, any more than sorcerers, be pressed against their will into the service of those who were unworthy? With the gifts of the J’Ettanne, it would be possible to order the world in peace. After long years of disagreement, the Open Hand prevailed, and J’Ettanne rose up all over the Four Realms, proclaiming that there would be no more war, no cruelty, no brutality. No more.”

“How was it possible?” I burst out, unable to contain all the questions jostling each other in my head. “The talents you’ve described are impressive, but not enough to defeat true warriors.”

“Let me show you.” His gaze flicked around the room as if to make sure we were all still there. His cheeks were slightly flushed, and he quickly returned his attention to the fire. This is what they did, and what no one then or since has ever understood.

I heard him speaking as clearly as if his mouth were at my ear. But his lips did not move, and the room was silent save for the snap of a log in the fire. My neck prickled and my mind swelled with a presence that was not the one I carried with me every day. It was gentle and embracing and apologetic, but as undeniable and overwhelmingly powerful as a spring deluge. In that same moment, I felt an overpowering thirst, and I lifted my brandy glass to my lips.

This would not have seemed so extraordinary if Tennice and Tanager and Julia had not lifted their glasses at exactly the same moment in exactly the same motion, all of us stopping in a single movement as if time itself had halted. Suddenly, my knees felt like water.

“So you see,” he went on in audible speech once more, “how it might be possible to change many things with such abilities.”

Tanager, Tennice, Julia, and I… we looked at each other with astonishment, disbelief, and a hundred other emotions that were written on our faces. Tanager downed his brandy all in one gulp and jumped up from the floor to pour himself another. Julia’s slender hand seemed paralyzed, and she stared first at Karon and then Martin. Tennice slammed down his glass, sloshing the amber liquid on a small table and jerking his hand away. I forced myself to exhale, hearing the tremulous sound of my own breath as implications and possibilities ran riot in my head… terrifying possibilities… humiliating… violating…

Oh, Seri, don’t be afraid. No, I’ve never — not ever — done this to you before. You’ve had no thought that was not your own. You’ve felt no desire, performed no act that was not of your own will. And until this moment, I’ve never let myself hear anything but what has come from your lips.

The words carried so much more than their meaning—a plea for understanding that exposed a part of his most private self—that I found myself thinking, It’s all right; it’s all right. I’m not afraid. Not of you. And I knew it all was real when he glanced up quickly and gave me a tenuous smile.

“You can see how it might be easy to abuse such a gift,” he went on, “and why people might come to fear it. That was what happened. For thirty or forty years the Open Hand ruled the Four Realms and corrected all that seemed wrong. But the J’Ettanne were no wiser than other men and no more immune to self-importance, and more and more they liked to order things according to their whims. Those who disputed their rule were punished with nightmares and terrors until the poor souls thought they were going mad. The poor and ignorant were controlled with superstitions—rumors of vile monsters, spirits, and demons. By the time of the Rebellion, the J’Ettanne had enslaved the people they thought to save, and, in their arrogance, had written their—our—doom.”

“But what chance had ordinary people against such power?” Tennice sat stiffly in one corner of the couch with his third glass of brandy, his voice tight, verging on anger.

Karon stood up, folding his arms, a slender silhouette against the fire. “There were so few of us. That was the key. We had been scattered for so long that our numbers had not increased like those of other races. And it doesn’t matter if I can listen to what you’re thinking, for if all five of you are thinking at once, as loud and discordantly as possible, I can sort it out no better than if you’re all babbling at once.”

Tanager had stretched his long legs over the rest of Tennice’s couch, and with a wry grin poked one of his outsized feet at his older brother. “That’s exactly what Evan and I always did when we were boys. We’d bully Tennice into taking on Father over our last scrape, while we went off and got into another. We’d yell at him until he was so confused, he couldn’t think how hard Father was going to come down on him.”

Tennice glared sourly at Tanager… and then slowly, reluctantly, his stormy countenance relaxed and he broke into a rueful chuckle. “I had to take up the law as self-defense.”

Karon nodded, laughter dancing across his face like the wisps of summer fire above a midnight meadow. “Quite the same. In our case, it was only the matter of a single year until the Open Hand was overthrown. Those who came to power decreed that no one would be safe as long as any J’Ettanne walked upon the earth. No work of the J’Ettanne could stand and no memory of the J’Ettanne could survive. Thus began the extermination and the law that you know. The priests called us heretics and destroyed everything we had touched, as well as many things that had nothing to do with us. They closed down every temple and shrine, broke every statue, burned every writing, ruined every artifact that was not devoted to Arot and Mana or one of the Twins—”

“That’s why the temple rules are so strict about heresy, and priests are so quick to stamp out any talk of lesser deities like harvest gods or shopkeepers’ daemons or water spirits,” said Julia.