Rachel Lee - Shadows of Prophecy

“I thank you for your trust, Lord Jenah.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I am hardly a lord, my Lady. I was simply chosen by my Tel for this mission. Chosen, it seems, to lead my brothers to their deaths.”

“Bear not that burden alone,” Tess said. “From what Archer has told me, you did all that could be asked for, and more besides. Your brothers’ blood is not on your hands, but on the hands of he who betrayed you. And in time, we will know who that is.”

“That time will be soon now,” he said, looking up at a jagged ridgeline. “Beyond that rise lie the villages of Gewindi-Tel. And there the truth will out.”

At the top of the rise, Giri looked out at the village below and paused for a long moment. Tess came up beside him and saw the glistening in his eyes.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’ve waited a long time to see a telner, m’Lady. I thought I would never see one again.”

“Gewindi-Telner,” Jenah announced with a sweep of his arm. “Home of Gewindi-Tel, my clan.”

Tess at once noticed the odd configuration of the village: a large, round central building surrounded by a plaza that seemed to mimic flames spreading out from the sun. From there radiated three winding paths that led to smaller round buildings, each of which was set amidst even smaller stone buildings and fallow fields.

“All Anari villages are constructed in this form,” Giri said. “It symbolizes the end of the First Age.”

“What does it mean?”

Giri’s eyes clouded with sorrow. “In the end,” he said quietly, “the gods were so angry with the Firstborn that they tore the world asunder. It is a reminder that the world today is but a small part of what it once was.”

Tess looked down on the village with new appreciation, then realized they had been spotted. Even from this distance she could see the villagers beginning to gather, facing in their direction.

Jenah sighed heavily, but when he spoke, his voice was taut with anger. “Let me ride ahead and tell the story, lest the lady and her party be misunderstood.”

Giri nodded. “A good idea, cousin. I will ride with you as a token of our good faith.”

Jenah nodded. Giri turned, and in one sleek movement he swung into his saddle. “Wait here,” he said to Tess. “I’ll come when it is time.”

Tess was surprisingly ready to dismount and just rest for a few minutes, even though she had been dreaming of the comforts of civilization for these many hours past. She had hardly begun to dismount when strong hands clasped her waist and aided her.

Archer. She turned and managed a wan smile. “Thank you.”

He gave a slight bow of his head. “Let us make a small fire and eat something. Perhaps Lady Sara will be good enough to create one of her stews. You need to regain your energy, my Lady.”

Since events in Lorense and the discovery that Sara, the innkeeper’s daughter, was one of the fabled Ilduin, she had become Lady Sara. Tess herself had been referred to as such much longer, but she was still finding it difficult to accept the obvious implication: that she was set apart from her fellows.

She turned her gaze from Archer and looked down the long slope. Jenah and Giri were riding slowly, as if they dreaded delivering the message they bore. And in the town below, new stillness seemed to indicate that the people guessed what that message would be.

Sara and Tom seemed only too glad for the distraction of preparing a meal. Ratha gathered some wood and laid the fire before returning to his position against a rock. It was clear he was still on guard, though now it was against the traitor among the Anari. The remaining Anari, a group of less than twenty, merely sat stone-faced, awaiting their moment to return home…and their moment to be judged.

While the horses grazed among the sparse vegetation, Tess sat crosslegged on the brow of the ridge, looking down on the valley spread before her. Archer settled beside her, one knee raised, leaning back on his arm.

“The flower of the Gewindi Clan is mostly gone,” he said soberly.

“What did they hope to accomplish by attacking that patrol?”

“Exactly what came to befall them.” He sighed. “You dozed for a few minutes during the ride, and I spoke with Jenah. He said that Bozandari patrol was on its way to the Telnah, to take more slaves. Most of the men who died last night would have been taken. And some of the women, as well. They chose to fight instead, to preserve their Tel. From stories they have heard, the slave patrols have lately been killing many of those they don’t take, or burning the villages’ food supplies and leaving the Tels to starve.”

“Why in the world would they do that?”

Archer made a small movement, suggestive of a shrug. “The Bozandari have always been a hard people. Long it was a hardness born of necessity. Their home city has always been a way station and trade center, but the Bozandari themselves had little to sell. So they learned to exact the greatest possible profit from their location. Traders coming to Bozandar are taxed, and the market keepers also take tax in kind on all goods brought for sale. It was how the Bozandari learned to survive.”

He paused a moment. “In times gone by, this was naught but a means of feeding themselves and their people. But taking from all whom they encountered became a way of life. And as their wealth grew, they could afford larger armies with which to intimidate or conquer their neighbors. For a people accustomed to providing for themselves from other people’s labors, conquest and plunder were but a small step.”

“But whyever do they turn these people into slaves?”

“It began because the Anari are such great workers of stone. The Bozandari wanted their cities to shine with the same beauty and skill, so they collected the best of the Anari stoneworkers and took them to Bozandar. But beyond that, why work a market oneself when one can make a slave do the work? Why cook one’s own meals when a slave can do that? Again, for a people whose history lies in surviving on the work of others, ’tis but a small step.”

Tess shook her head. “There are no limits to the cruelty of men.”

“It seems not.” His face grew shadowed, as if he were remembering things best forgotten.

For his sake, she tried to change the subject. “How is it the Ilduin came to have such power? If Sara and I are to be useful as Ilduin, it would seem that we ought to know who we are and how our powers work.”

He was silent for a moment, as if drawing himself out of a dark pit. “You speak of the Mysteries.”

“The Mysteries?”

“Aye. The secrets of the Ilduin. The Ilduin of old may have known. ’Twas said their powers were gifts from the gods. But whatever they knew, they kept to themselves. ’Tis said that at the end of the First Age, when horror and destruction lay all around, the Ilduin oversaw the building of the Anari temples and concealed all the Mysteries within those temples. If that be true, none has ever found the answers, though many have tried over the centuries.”

The stew was soon ready. Sara had an amazing way of throwing a few things into a pot and in a short while producing a savory meal. Tess ate with a hunger that surprised even herself, as if she had not eaten in weeks. Almost as soon as the food hit her belly, she could feel herself strengthening.

By the time Sara and Tom had finished cleaning up and were about to put out the cook fire, Giri began to ride up the slope toward them. He came fast, but not fast enough to cause alarm.

When he reached them, his face was grave and full of sorrow. “Let us go down to Gewindi-Telner. They have offered us lodging at Telnertah, the village temple.”

He looked past them at the other Anari. “You will follow us.”