The Seven-Petaled Shield (11 page)

“You had best be gone,” Rethoren said. “He will not be able to travel for some time now, if ever.”

Tsorreh nodded, hearing the truth.

Then she was alone with her grandfather. Rethoren had vanished and the girl had taken Zevaron back to the meditation chamber. Tsorreh blinked back tears. They had given her a chance to say a private farewell.

“Come here, my child.” Tenereth’s voice brushed her like a shiver. “My heir.”

He was going to give her some family treasure. She didn’t want it. She only wanted to run away with him, with Zevaron, and for them all to be safe. She thought of staying with him in the temple, of nursing him back to health. Surely, a small delay would not prove fatal. But she knew, in the hard knot of her belly, that she dared not. For Zevaron’s sake, she must leave while she still could.

Tsorreh searched for words of farewell, but none came. She knelt by the side of the bed and took his hand again. His fingers, the skin dry, the knuckles enlarged and bony, grasped hers.

“I wish…there had been time enough,” he said. Then, as if a new strength surged up in him, he continued. “I should have instructed you, prepared you. I had hoped to pass it directly to Zevaron. But he is still too young.”

“Hush,” she said. “Do not trouble yourself. Whatever it is, I will keep it for him.”

The power of his grip silenced her. Tears sprang to her eyes. Seeking to comfort him, she bent closer, her face close to his. She saw, through her own blurring vision, the look of pleading in his eyes. He released her abruptly, his hand falling away. His body tensed, his breathing turned sharp and quick, and he clawed at his chest with both hands.

“Grandfather, save your strength—”

Tenereth muttered under his breath as he pulled loose the neck fastening of his robe. Tsorreh could not make out the words, only the rhythm. It sounded like a chant, a prayer in the most ancient of the holy languages. She caught the name
Khored
and something about the Oath of Binding and the
te-alvar
. She dared not leave him in this state. He was raving. Rethoren would return at any moment, and he would know how to calm the old man.

Between Tenereth’s hands, a mote of golden light flared. He cradled a sphere of brilliance. It was too bright to look at directly, like the sun at midday, yet Tsorreh felt no heat.
His voice gained strength, and the light seemed to pulse and grow in intensity with each spoken phrase.

Something slammed into her breastbone, smooth and hard, yet small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. She struggled against the sudden pain. The cartilage of her ribs flexed under the pressure. Her heart drummed wildly, like a bird flailing its wings against the bars of a cage.

Light exploded behind her eyes. It swept through her body. For a wild moment, she remembered stories of men who had almost drowned or been caught in winter avalanches. They had seen branching tunnels of light—was she dying, too? The words reverberated through her bones.

White heat exploded outward from the point of agony in her chest. It shocked through her, blanketing out all other sensation. Then the pain slowly faded, giving way to unearthly stillness. She was a mote of brilliance, floating above a sea of light. Around her, radiant currents unfurled in elegant patterns. She sensed them, merged with them.

Now she was blue, a shimmering sky, an ocean steadfast and enduring.

Now green, eternal renewal, peace and healing, vibrant with compassion.

Now red, ebb and pulse, blood and courage.

She knew these colors and the attributes that went with them. She had walked this interwoven path before, traced the lineage with her fingertips, memorized the pattern.

Now yellow as the sun, as the pure clear light of dawn.

Now palest rose, the scent of blossoms, the faceted reflections of life.

Now purple, rich as the depths of a cavern, the shimmer on an eagle’s feathers, the strength of mountains.

The Shield!
She had, in some way far beyond human senses, journeyed through the essence of each of the sacred petal gems, the
alvara.

And now, coming to rest at last in the clear center of creation, she felt a calmness, a certainty through every part of her spirit. She stood at the heart of the Shield, in the
te-alvar
itself.

No, she
was
the central gem, the
te-alvar
. She was Khored’s gem, Khored’s heir.

This cannot be happening
, she thought. And then thought nothing at all.

*   *   *

“Mother?”

From afar, she heard a voice as familiar as the beating of her own heart. Male, on the edge between a boy’s treble and a man’s deeper tones. She should know his name—

“Mother, it is time. We must go, and quickly!”

Zevaron!

Tsorreh scrambled to her feet. Her grandfather’s hand, released from her grasp, fell limply to his chest. She folded it over the other.

Grief shivered along her bones. She heard a wailing begin at the back of her throat, but she swallowed it. If she lingered now, she would jeopardize everything he had given her: a head start and a chance for freedom, her life and her son’s, the mystical gem she now guarded within her own body.

“Sorrow and joy, each comes in its season.”
The words of the
te-Ketav
whispered through her mind. She would mourn him later, she swore to his motionless body.

Zevaron stood in the doorway. Tsorreh went to him. She held out her hands, trying to think what she could tell him. She had no words to describe what had just happened.

Rethoren waited beside the alcove, holding a lighted torch. Zevaron strode across the room, hefted one of the packs to his back, and helped the girl into another with a blush that surprised Tsorreh.

“Tenereth, he…” Grief clenched her throat. The priest
met her eyes, and she saw the ripple of his sorrow, quickly masked.

Rethoren thrust the torch into her hands. “Hurry,” he said in a voice only slightly roughened.

Tsorreh picked up the third pack. Now she remembered where she’d seen the girl before. It was on the wall of Meklavar with a sling in her hand—the Sand Lands girl. “Shadow Fox, isn’t it?”

The girl lowered her eyes. “I didn’t know if you’d remember me,
te-ravah
.”

“Tenereth arranged for her to guide you,” Rethoren said. “The trails through the Sand Lands can be treacherous.”

Tsorreh pressed her free hand over her heart, over the sudden pulse of bright and lingering pain. Blindly she turned toward the hidden passage. Rethoren caught her, held her for an instant. His lips brushed her forehead, and he said in a low, urgent voice, “Go now with all the prayers and hopes of Meklavar, that you may speedily return.”

“May it be ever so,” she responded from long habit.

Then, as if her legs had a mission of their own, she hurried through the opening and down the steep steps. She counted, feeling each one with her feet. Zevaron followed, and then the girl, Shadow Fox, silent as her namesake.

They hurried through the tunnel and its labyrinthine twists. The rough walls sped by in the lambent torchlight. At each branching, her grandfather’s directions sprang to mind.

“This way!” Tsorreh called, and they burst into a large, dry cavern. She paused, raising her torch. Light fell on the ancient chiseled alcoves and platforms, now bearing neat stacks of chests filled with wrapped books, just as she’d left them.

“What is this place?” Zevaron asked. Awe hushed his voice. “Who lived here?”

“I do not know,” she said.

“Somebody’s been here recently,” Zevaron said, pointing to the chests.

“
I
have,” she said. “That’s the library, or as much of it as I could carry.”

“Mother!”

A laugh surged up behind the knot of pain in her chest. “What did you think I was doing while you were keeping watch on the walls?”

“But—why
books
—?”

“And what else? Should we leave our heritage, our holy works, for the Gelon to plunder?” Tsorreh’s voice rang through the cave. The Sand Lands girl, who had been looking about with curiosity, recoiled. With an effort, Tsorreh reined in her temper. “Whether by you, yourself, or by your sons, we will be free once more, and these things will be waiting. What greater treasure is there than our heritage?”

“Swords!” he shouted.

Swords shimmering in the dawnlight like blades of silvered grass
…
horses neighing and men’s voices calling out, “Khored! Khored!”

From a high place, she looked out over the army while the sky condensed into darkness. Snow-crystal clouds flowed across the horizon. Wind whipped her cheeks, tasting of ashes and ice.

Tsorreh blinked. A shiver racked her body. The torch wavered in her hand. Beneath her breastbone, she sensed a flare of light, warm and golden. Above her arched the cavern with its rough stone walls. The Sand Lands girl stood at the far entrance, her face a pale oval. She gestured to hurry.

“Come on!” Zevaron shouted

Tsorreh started toward the opening. Her foot caught on an unevenness in the floor and she almost fell. Zevaron caught her arm and steadied her.

“You’re unwell—”

“No, no, I’m fine,” she insisted. The vision had faded, leaving a sick, heavy feeling in her stomach, but she knew she must go on. She tried to make her voice firm, stripped of all doubt. “From here, we must follow the air current.”

“Give me the torch,” he said. “Shadow Fox, help my mother.”

“I don’t need—” Tsorreh broke off her protest, as Zevaron had already plunged into the darkness. Saving her
breath, she hurried after him. He might be showing off for the girl, but he was right. Within a few paces, the passage narrowed, and her pack brushed the stone sides. In moments, the torchlight revealed a high open space above them, the upper surface so far away she could not make it out.

They went on, the velvety silence of the mountain broken only by their breathing and the scuff of leather over stone. It took all Tsorreh’s concentration to keep her balance. Zevaron rushed surefootedly along the passages, and Shadow Fox stayed close behind him.

Sometimes the tunnel widened or branched. Zevaron would halt, searching for the guiding air current, but never for long. When the torch burned out, he lit another from the bundle strapped to his pack. They rested and drank from their water skins and when appropriate turned politely aside to grant one another privacy.

How long they traveled like this, Tsorreh could not tell. Once she set her foot down on a loose stone and twisted her ankle. It throbbed for a time, as did the scrapes on her bare skin, but she ignored them. As long as she was able to travel, she must go on. She saved her breath for the next step and the next.

After a time, they began to climb. Sometimes Tsorreh had to use both hands and feet. Zevaron, above her, broke loose showers of dust and pebbles, sending Tsorreh and Shadow Fox into spasms of coughing.

Before long, Tsorreh’s muscles burned. Sweat trickled over her abrasions, stinging. Once her foot slipped and she almost lost her hold. The skin on her hands felt raw, broken.

At last they reached the end of the climb and the entrance to a long, low-ceilinged cavern. It was rounded like a tunnel, and spherical depressions pocked the surfaces. Zevaron started across it. Too exhausted to protest, Tsorreh followed.

“We rest,” came Shadow Fox’s voice from behind her. She had hardly said two words together since the beginning of their flight, replying to Zevaron’s solicitude only in
monosyllables. “We will find no better place, and here we are hidden. Once free of these mountains, the spies of the Rock People can follow us. We must keep ourselves strong.”

With a nod, Zevaron agreed. Tsorreh lowered herself into a large, rounded depression in the surface, which was so coarse it felt as if a thousand tiny teeth jabbed through the fabric of her trousers.

They ate a little from the stores of dried meat and fruit in their packs. Zevaron set out his flint carefully before extinguishing the torch to conserve it.

The darkness was so complete, Tsorreh could not tell if her eyes were open or closed. Her body craved sleep, and yet a formless dread held her back. She kept thinking of her vision of the hilltop, as real and vivid as if it were a personal memory, of Khored and his brothers preparing for battle with armies of monsters, creatures of the primeval incarnation of chaos, rendered from the ancient tongue as
Fire and Ice
.

Something whispered through the back of her mind, a sound like a hissing serpent, and then a long exhalation. Not Fire and Ice, the common appellation, but syllables of power, of conjuring.

A name. A secret name that only Khored knew.

She saw a hilltop and heard the glint and clash of swords. A man stood with his back to her. Wind tore at his braids, dark as the cavern
.
His
skin glowed like honey. One bare arm lifted against the gathering storm, hand clenched. Then his fingers opened, cradling something infinitely precious and powerful—clear light, brilliant as the sun. She heard his voice, but whether he shouted or whispered, she could not tell. The syllables in their ancient rhythm called forth, gathered, summoned. Words became light, and light flowed through spirit, and spirit condensed itself back into words: BY GRACE, ALL THINGS ARE MADE.

How did she know this? How could she possibly remember this?

Retching and dizzy, Tsorreh curled herself into a ball. She held on to her knees, digging her fingers into her muscles,
hard against her bones. She was here, she told herself, here in her body, here in this lightless cave with Zevaron, her Zevaron, and the girl from the walls of Meklavar, and it was now, at the fall of the city.

Now, and no other time.

Here, and no other place.

Gradually her heart slowed and she felt less sick. She sat up, spat out acid saliva, and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

“Mother?” Zevaron sounded very young. He was frightened and doing his best to hide it. Darkness revealed as much as it covered.