Rachel Lee - Shadows of Destiny

“It is essential we gain the cooperation of Bozandar.”

“Aye.” He looked down at her, his face unreadable in the starshine. “I would hear any suggestion you might have.”

That was when she realized that he had at last begun to trust her. Always before there had been a sense that he doubted her real purposes. It was a doubt for which she could not blame him. After all, she could remember nothing before the horrific day the past autumn when she had awakened among the slaughtered caravan, knowing not even her own name.

Sometimes she wondered if she should trust herself. At times she had felt the touch of the Enemy, Lord Ardred, like a dark shadow in her mind, seeking, always seeking, something from her. It had been a while, though, since she had felt that chilling, oily touch in her mind, and for that she was grateful.

“I wish I had a suggestion,” she said finally. “I don’t think asking those soldiers to become traitors is going to be easy for anyone, no matter how silver-tongued.”

She felt, rather than saw, his agreeing nod.

“Yet,” he said after a moment, “they will not be traitors, but saviors. Saviors of all men.”

“So go in and tell them who you are. It worked with Tuzza.”

A sigh escaped him, barely heard before it was snatched away by the wind.

“How many will believe that I have lived for so long, hidden among them?”

“I find it hard to believe myself. Has it been as awful as I suspect?”

“It has been a curse. Death would have been welcome countless times. And yet it is a just punishment. My deeds led to the end of the Firstborn. Why should I not wander the world, a stranger among strangers, for the rest of eternity?”

“Not your deeds alone.” She turned to face him, allowing the icy wind to come between them. “Just because you have a conscience does not mean that you alone are responsible. I have looked into the past in my dreams and in the old stories, and what I see is that many were responsible in different ways. Say what you will, Annuvil, the guilt is not yours alone.”

“Mayhap not. What does it matter? I have been preserved for this time, these events. Perhaps if I acquit myself well and do what is expected of me this time, the gods will set me free.”

She tilted her head back to better see him. “You would wish your own end? Are you sure that is a good wish for a man who will lead us in the war against Ardred?”

Surprising her, he chuckled. “There are many ways a man can be set free. Perhaps at last I will be free to be mortal. Perhaps it will be something else. How should I know? The minds of the gods are ever opaque.”

“I am coming to know that well.” She felt a wave of relief at his laughter, though she couldn’t have blamed him for being bitter about his lot. Nor could she imagine how awful these centuries must have been for him.

“It’s a wonder,” she said slowly, “that the years did not drive you mad.”

“Sometimes they did. I am grateful that I have little memory of those times, however. They are blurred in my mind, and all sense of time was lost. I sometimes lived like a beast in the forest, I believe.”

“I’m sorry. Sorry and awed, for I cannot imagine surviving such a thing. How did you make yourself go on?”

“I was promised,” he said slowly. “I was promised that someday my Theriel would be returned to me.”

She stepped back even farther, and ignored the cold wind. For some reason she could not readily name, she felt…hurt. “Who promised you?”

“Elanor. She came to me after…after the destruction. She promised that if I served her well, in the end I would see my wife again. I have clung to that promise.”

“Are you sure you can trust Elanor? Or any of the gods?”

He shook his head. “No. I freely admit I cannot. Their purposes are not ours. But…it is all I have. My heart died with Theriel, and the remaining ember is all that I have left. I must believe.”

“I can see that.” She turned from him, letting his cloak fall away, letting the wind sweep over her and chill her to her very bones. She spread her arms as if to embrace the winter night. A snowflake, such as had never fallen in this valley in the memory of men, drifted down and landed on one of her fingertips.

“I don’t know who I am,” she said slowly, watching the flake melt. “I don’t know where I am from. I have no promises to uphold me. Yet here I am, and I do what I must.”

“Then perhaps your burden is the greater by far.”

She turned suddenly and faced him. “What do they mean when they call me the Weaver?”

“It is said that one day an Ilduin would come who could touch the warp and woof of reality, and bend it to her will.”

“And they think I am that person?”

“You wielded the Weaver’s sword in battle.”

“Anyone could have wielded that sword.”

He shook his head slowly. “Not as you did.”

She closed her eyes, remembering the moment when Tom had placed the sword in her hand and told her what it was. After that, everything had become a great blur. She had little memory of the battle afterward, and knew only what she was told: that she had led a force of men against a flanking attack and had saved the day. That later, with one word, she had caused the battle to instantly still.

A great fear began to tremble in her, colder than the cold that surrounded her. “What does it mean? What is expected of me?”

“I know not.”

“The prophecies. If the Weaver is mentioned in them, there must be some hint, some clue!”

“Have you not realized by now how prophecies are more riddles than foretellings? I cannot tell you what it is you are to do. I cannot tell you how to do it. You must trust, my lady, that when the time comes you will know.”

“There is too much call for trust.”

“I know.” He looked past her down the valley to where the fires burned in the prison compound. “They too must find a way to trust. For trust, I believe, is all that will save us from the wiles of Ardred.”

She turned from him and looked down the valley, too, thinking of the men who must be huddled around those fires, despairing and perhaps even bitter in defeat, a taste that no Bozandari had known before. “Aye,” she said, her heart heavy with dread. “They, too, must trust. And perhaps that will be the most difficult thing of all.”

That night, in her dreams, the white wolf came to her again, as he had twice in reality. He howled, a mournful, spine-tingling sound, then seemed to gesture for her to follow him.

Through the mists of her dream, she slipped after him. As was the way of dreams, she never wondered why she followed, or what the wolf wanted of her. Nor did she feel any fear.

Gradually the mist softened, then faded until she could see the woods through which they traveled. Always the wolf was just ahead of her, pausing in his easy, long-legged lope when necessary to let her catch up.

At last they emerged into a clearing. Above, the sky glistened with a carpet of stars thicker than any she had ever seen. Then, around her, she heard the murmur of voices. She could not make out the words but sensed that she stood in the center of some invisible gathering.

Until now, she had felt nothing, but as she stood there, her discomfort grew, because she felt as if she were being judged by some unseen jury. The wolf remained at her side, but his presence offered scant comfort. She began to think of fleeing from this haunted clearing. At that instant the voices fell silent.

Then a woman stepped out of the shadows, her face concealed by a hood that cast it in darkness.

“Many,” the woman said quietly, “are your sisters who have gone before you. To none of us fell the burden that now befalls you. Yet each of us, in her own way, has prepared your path with promises and prayers. We cannot tell you what is to come, for the gods make a game, and we are bound by their rules. But we will be with you, little sister. If you hear a whisper on the air, listen for our voices. All that lies between is a veil, and that veil can be pierced.”