Rachel Lee - Shadows of Destiny

Ratha smiled for an instant. “Hers, my lord. The battle you ask of me is one with which I am familiar. The battle she asks…”

“I cannot deny the truth of that, my brother,” Archer said, his face mirroring Ratha’s smile. “The battle she asks risks more than your life. Perhaps it is better that you are fully healed before you face that.”

“I will rejoin you soon, my lord,” Ratha said. “And please tell Cilla that I cannot return until I am whole. She will know of what I speak.”

“I will, my brother. I will.”

Archer rose and left him, picking his way down to where he had left his mount. He hadn’t the heart to tell Ratha that grief never ended, it merely yielded.

For a moment, his own shoulders slumped, as if the weight of his burdens were bending him low. Then he straightened himself, refusing to give in. Despair was a luxury none of them could afford.

At the temple, the three Ilduin walked in a slow circle around the central chamber of the round building. This chamber held the statues of twelve women, presumably the original Ilduin, and it was toward these they looked, as if the statues might somehow tell them where to find their still-missing sisters.

Tess had avoided this chamber since that first visit when she and her sisters had felt the horror of the Ilduin destruction of Dederand. Instead, they had focused their work on the anteroom, with the statues of the gods. It was Sara who had suggested that perhaps Elanor had revealed all that she would, and they should shift their studies to this room. The temple at Anahar was a living being in stone, and this chamber was its heart.

“There must be some of our sisters among the Bozandari,” Sara said, an edge of distaste in her voice. The only ones who liked the Bozandari these days were the Bozandari themselves.

“Of course,” Tess said slowly. “But at present we cannot reach them. We cannot go to Bozandar.”

Cilla spoke. “The two of you could. No one would remark you in Bozandar.”

“Mayhap not,” Tess replied. “But what are we to do? Go from door to door asking if an Ilduin dwells within? I think not.”

She reached out and touched the cool, rainbow-hued stone of the temple wall. “I wish Anahar could sing for them, calling them as she called the Anari….” Her voice trailed off as a thought struck her.

“The stones!” Cilla and Sara said on a single breath.

“Aye!” Eagerly, Tess drew forth the leather pouch she wore always around her neck. Walking to the center of the room, she spilled the stones upon the floor. “We know two of them have fallen under the Enemy’s sway.”

“These,” Sara said. She pointed as she watched two of them roll apart from the others and begin to make their ways across the floor, toward two of the statues. One of the stones was beryl, the other yellow quartz.

The three of them stared dubiously at the remaining nine stones. Cilla reached out, removing the opal, which was Tess’s, the sapphire which was Sara’s, and the emerald which was her own. That left amethyst, ruby, carnelian, topaz, garnet, jade and turquoise. Those, too, then began to roll across the floor, drawn by an unseen force.

“Should we do this?” Sara asked, her voice hushed. “We don’t know how many may belong to Ardred.”

“Nor do we want Ardred to know we are summoning them,” Tess pointed out. “Although I am not certain we can avoid it. He has Ilduin serving him.”

“And we know at least two of them,” Cilla said, pointing to the two stones that had begun to roll toward their statues before turning away from them and coming to rest near each other. The other stones had seemingly scattered themselves around the room.

Cilla continued, “Even so, Ardred’s Ilduin will know we are doing something. How can they not? We seem to be joined tightly to one another, all twelve, in some way.”

“And those who have no notion that they are Ilduin might not even understand the contact,” Sara said.

Tess had fallen silent as she stared at the stones. For a time, no sound passed among the women. “There is a riddle here,” she said finally. She placed her stone onto the floor. “Place down your stones, sisters.”

The three stones rolled across the floor, coming to rest in a tight cluster, apart from the others.

Tess’s brow furrowed. “It is as if they mimic where we are in the world. Almost as if they form a map.”

Tess found her mind drifting back to a time before she inhabited this world, to lessons she had studied. How to find her way across a landscape with the barest of tools. She could not pull the whole of the memory into focus, and yet she knew that it would help her resolve this mystery.

“If they are a map, there are no landmarks,” Sara said, looking at the floor. She pointed to the cluster of their three stones. “We know we are there, but where is that in relation to anywhere else?”

“We need to know where Ardred is,” Tess said. “That will give us an orientation, and perhaps even a scale.”

Cilla looked at her strangely. “You speak of things I do not know, sister.”

“And I hardly remember them myself,” Tess said. “It angers me that my own past must bear on our journey, and yet most of it lies behind a veil, unknown to me.”

“But not all,” Sara said. “You spoke of, what was it, orientation and scale. What are they?”

Tess closed her eyes for a moment, hoping that perhaps this past would emerge fully formed, and yet it remained clouded in impenetrable mist. Still, she had spoken the words, and she knew their meaning.

“A map must give us direction and distance,” she said. “If we know the orientation of a map, we know which way to walk to reach a destination. If we know the scale of a map, we know how many days it will take to get there.”

Tess pointed to the three stones that represented them and then to a looser cluster of four others. “If the stones are indeed a map, four of our sisters live near one another, there. But we don’t know what direction to walk in order to reach them, nor how far away they might be.”

“You said that if we knew where Ardred is, we could know this,” Cilla said, pointing to the beryl and quartz stones. “You think those two will be with him?”

“I would be surprised if they were not,” Tess said. “He relies on the power of the Ilduin. He must keep them near at hand, lest he find himself caught without them.”

“But surely he cannot control the whole of his forces with only two Ilduin,” Sara said.

“No,” Tess agreed. “He cannot. Glassidor’s hive was small by comparison to the Enemy’s. The Enemy would reach to his other Ilduin through the two he keeps at hand.”

The three women stared down at the scattered stones, trying to find some clue that would give them direction. Presently, Tess began to walk around them, viewing them from all directions, seeking any hint they might give her. Hoping the arrangement would speak to her on some level.

“All we need,” she said slowly, “is one other point of reference. If we knew where just one of these Ilduin was located, other than ourselves, the map would become clear.”

Cilla pointed. “These four that are near one another. Surely they must be in a large city? Bozandar, perhaps?”

Sara answered. “Mayhap. Or mayhap they have been drawn together by him whom we fight.”

“Aye, that concerns me,” said Tess slowly. “But they may also have come together as we have, finding one another by chance as they seek to fight the Evil One.”

“Even so,” Cilla said, “they must be from different bloodlines, as we are. Four such women, together in one place, speaks of a city where people gather from all over. Surely Bozandar is such a city.”

“I agree,” Tess said. “It is likely that they are in and around Bozandar. But we must assume that at least one of them is in the Enemy’s thrall. He could not master the Bozandari otherwise.”