“By rights, I should denounce you myself,” Aritane spat at him, “or very least wipe this conversation from your memory, together with all this festering hate and whatever half-truths you think you’ve garnered from lowland gossip!”
“Do so,” shrugged Jeirran. “No matter, it won’t change anything. Inside half a season, someone like me, someone selling his ingots or another trapper trading with the lowlands, he’ll bring back these songs and tales. Yevrein will be wondering why these people, who must surely share our blood, why are they so feared by the lowlanders? Why are these Elietimm using all means at their disposal to protect homes and families, while we are robbed and assaulted at every season’s turn? Peider and his friends will start wondering too, start asking questions of Sheltya, demanding answers too. Whoever among you decides to find those answers—well, that’ll be the one who finally takes the whip out of the hands of the old and fearful, won’t it? To govern how the true magic is used, to see that wisdom tempers raw power that the so-called wise are too fearful to use?”
Aritane looked down at her hands, still clasped between Jeirran’s broad palms. “You said you had a favor to ask of me?” She looked up, her face emotionless but her eyes boring into his.
Now it came to the point, Jeirran hesitated. “It is said that Sheltya can speak to each other across the mountains and valleys, send word to their colleagues far distant, farther than a season’s travel.”
Aritane nodded slowly. Jeirran continued more boldly, breaking into the tense silence with sudden urgency. “Could you contact these Elietimm? Could you find out more about them? Could you see if they might help us, teach us, maybe even make common cause with us? If they were to attack the lowlanders in the east, while we came down from the mountains, we could reclaim our lands, regain our pride!”
Aritane pulled her hands free to hug herself, shivering despite the sunshine. “You do not know what you are asking,” she murmured. “I have heard of these Elietimm, of course I have. We have been forbidden to seek them.”
“I am asking you to help your people,” Jeirran said softly. “Sheltya took you away from your own that you might serve all those of the mountains. Is there anything else but such service in what I am asking? Do you want to go back to solving squabbles between silly women, arbitrating rows over grazing, dealing with death and foulness when some traveler brings pestilence to a remote valley, while all the time our people are made poorer and meaner by lowland greed?”
“You are a curious choice to be arguing for the greater good and selfless risk-taking,” said Aritane dryly. “What’s in this for you, Jeirran?”
“Power, what do you think?” He spread his hands wide. “The power to hunt Eirys’ lands without fear of losing the best pelts to some lowlander’s snares. I want to see her brothers able to sell the ores they labor to dig for a fair price. Power. I want to be rich, Ari, I want to keep Eirys in all the luxuries her little head can imagine and to stop the mouth of that mother of hers with an endless diet of honey and cakes, if that’s what it takes to silence the hag. I want to hand my sons a handsome patrimony and to see my daughters set up to claim every right over and under the land that their blood allows. I want to be a power in the mountains, Ari, one to make the lowlanders look to the hills and fear my wrath more than the cold winter wind.” He grinned at her. “I want to be a brother once again to the new leader of Sheltya. I want to have the ear of the woman who restores true magic to its rightful place of honor and influence.”
Aritane shook her head but she was smiling now, a thin, heartless smile with a spark growing behind her eyes. “I’m not surprised that silly child Eirys fell for your blandishments, Jeirran. You always did have a tongue quicker than a mountain stream and more slippery than the rocks beneath it.”
“Will you do it?” Jeirran persisted.
“I shouldn’t even waste a moment’s thought on it.” Aritane pursed her lips. “I could find myself turned out on the bare mountainside with my mind as empty as a midwinter barrel. If anyone found out—”
“Who’s to know?” demanded Jeirran. “I’m hardly likely to go gossiping to any passing Sheltya, am I? I’m as deep in this as you are, more so. You are the one with the power over me, you said so yourself. Your word alone could have me shunned across the breadth of the mountains, no reason given or asked.”
“I can use my skills to try and get a response but with scarcely more certainty than setting a signal fire in the mountains and hoping someone will see the smoke. The trick will be reaching far enough away before raising the cry to escape notice closer at hand.” Aritane was talking to herself more than to Jeirran. “If I do find these Elietimm, what then?” she challenged him abruptly.
“Then we have something to tell those who feel as we do,” Jeirran said confidently. “There are plenty of us fed up with being bilked and cheated by the lowlanders. Deny there are Sheltya chafing under the constraints of custom and the Elders? We tell them that there are men and women of our blood beyond the ocean who do not bow and scrape and ever retreat in the face of lowlander aggression.”
Aritane tilted her head to one side. “You always were shrewd enough, I’ll grant you that much.” She moved with sudden decisiveness, shaking out her unadorned skirts. Looking toward the mountains to the north, she checked the position of the sun overhead, moving this way and that to assess the shadows before crossing to one side of the roof and squinting at the misty shapes of higher ground. Nodding at some inner conclusion, she turned to Jeirran, her face animated with daring and defiance for an instant before resuming the mask of her earlier indifference.
“Sit with your back to the chimney, facing north.” He hurried to comply.
“You do not interrupt me, you do not touch me, you do not move or say anything,” Aritane ordered in a tone of absolute authority. She sat cross-legged, heedless of her dress on the dusty roof. Elbows resting on her knees, she laid her face in her upturned hands and began to breathe deeply, regularly, in through her nose and then forcing the air out of her mouth in an ever lengthening exhalation, pushed deep from within her.
Jeirran jumped, startled, when the low sound halted and clenched his fists against the urge to go to her. Sweat began to bead on his forehead. He moved a hand as if about to wipe it away but stilled himself. His lips moved in what might have been a muttered curse, had he dared to speak. His eyes were unblinking, bright sapphire as he fixed his gaze on Aritane, who was now taking shallow breaths, pauses between each. Jeirran found himself following the same ragged pattern, the color beneath his beard fading to an unhealthy pallor until he lifted his chin with an explosive intake of breath, panting uncontrollably for a few moments before a natural rhythm was restored to his lungs.
High above, a hawk’s thin cry was wheeled away on the wind, serving only to emphasize the vast silence of the empty valley. A flurry of dust and nameless debris skittered across the roof as a fugitive gust swirled around Aritane’s motionless figure. Jeirran blinked and spat out some fragment, shaking his head a fraction before forcing himself to immobility once more. The breeze vanished and the sun pressed down on his head, striking up from the stones and laying black shadows across the white surface of the roof. The chimney at his back was solid and reassuring but cold and silent where once it had been the warm heart of the rekin. A trickle of perspiration rolled down the side of Jeirran’s face to vanish into his beard. Another followed, this one moving sideways to sting the corner of his eye.
A great crash reverberated around the circular wall of the compound, echoing back and forth with a sound like a hot rock shattered by the shock of cold water. Terror leaped in Jeirran’s eyes for an instant, fear naked as the mask of arrogance and confidence was torn from his face. The noise came again, the rap of wood on stone and Jeirran took a long, trembling breath. It was the gate, wasn’t it? Set swinging by a wind rising up from the valley bottom, that was it, surely?
He looked at Aritane, who was motionless as stone.
Was it the gate? Had someone else come here, Jeirran wondered suddenly. Would Sheltya be using their powers to watch over Aritane? Could some distant gray-bearded Elder have been listening in on their conversation? Was the sound the first warning they had been discovered, that Sheltya were come? One always seemed to be on hand when needed, but were they here now, to frustrate their plot?
Jeirran’s breath came faster. He was sweating copiously, even when a new breeze cooled him. Hands clenched by his sides were shaking, tremors running up his arms to jar the stiffness in his neck and shoulders. The heat and the silence pressed down unforgiving, as if they would pound the rocks to dust.
Aritane lifted her face, dropping her hands in the lap of her dress. Livid spots blossomed on her forehead where her fingertips had been digging into the skin. Jeirran pressed against the stone at his back as she turned her eyes to him. They were featureless pits of blackness, no white, no color, no life within them. He scrambled to his knees, a whimper of nameless terror escaping him.
Aritane blinked and her eyes were normal again. A warm rose softened her cheeks, and elation set her face alight. She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Oh, Jeirran,” she whispered in tones of wonder. “I found them!”
“I—” He coughed to quell the shaking in his voice. “I knew you could,” he answered more boldly. “So what—”
Aritane shook her head. “Wait, let me compose myself.” She stood, moving stiffly, brushing awkwardly at the dirt on her gown. Hugging her arms to her, she turned to stare out eastward. “They are out there, Jeirran, out beyond the Easterlings, beyond the ocean.” She laughed with pure delight. “They didn’t know me, of course, but they acknowledged my power, my right to come seeking them. They congratulated me on my daring, praised my skills. I can’t recall the last time anyone did that here!”
“So what did you say? What did you tell them? Will they help us?” demanded Jeirran, striding over to stand at her shoulder.
“What?” Aritane’s eyes were distant again.
Jeirran moved to block her view of the valley and the east. “What are they going to do for us?” He laid a hand on her, a breath away from shaking her.
“Oh, Jeirran, you always want everything all at once, don’t you?” Irritation replaced the exhilaration in Aritane’s expression. “I have told them I wish to discuss matters of grave importance and that I will contact them when I am next at leisure.”
“Ari!” Anger roughened Jeirran’s words. “Why the delay, why not simply—”
“Do not question my methods, Jeirran,” she warned him. “This is my task and I know best how to go about it. Believe me, I have no desire to find myself answering to Sheltya before I have allies with the means to back me and defend me.”
“So how long is it likely to be before you have the necessary leisure?” snapped Jeirran crossly.
Consideration furrowed Aritane’s brow. “I think I had better come to visit your wife. I will let those to whom I answer think that she is concerned about her lack of a child. As long as you keep from her bed for a while, that should satisfy any curiosity. If I can have privacy, a decent room and a few comforts for a change, I should be able to concentrate all my energies on discussions with our new friends.” She smiled with a predatory satisfaction.
“Eirys’ mother will not be pleased,” Jeirran scowled. “She’ll start poking her long nose where it’s not wanted.”
“Then you will get your wife to assert herself as mistress of her own hearth,” said Aritane crisply. “It’s about time that girl showed a little backbone.”
“That’s hardly likely,” Jeirran scoffed. “I wasn’t looking for spirit when I wooed her!”
“It’s up to you.” Aritane turned to the steps down into the rekin. “You need me, if you want to pursue this further. Persuade Eirys to start fretting over her barrenness, and then no one will wonder at my visit. I know that you’ve been having words on that subject, haven’t you? And doing your best to swell her belly, whether she’s agreeable or not.” This last remark was tossed casually over her shoulder as she descended.
“How do you know that?” demanded Jeirran, a furious blush staining his cheeks scarlet. He cursed under his breath and rubbed his hands roughly over his face before pursuing his sister. Running down the stairs, he skidded to a halt at the bottom, nailed boot soles grating on the stones. Aritane was nowhere to be seen.
“A pox on your games for the witless, woman,” he shouted into the empty room, dust thick upon the flagstones, unmoved, unmarked save for Jeirran’s footprints.
“Drown you!” He ran out into the center of the fess. “Aritane!” He stormed over to the workshops, but they were as desolate as before. “What do you think you are playing at? Aritane!”
The echoes of his wrathful bellow mocked him as they came bounding back from the impassive walls. As the noise faded, the silence pressed down even more heavily than before.
Jeirran shivered involuntarily before marching down to the gateway. He paused on the threshold to wedge the open door again but halted with a stone in his hand. Muttering under his breath, he moved instead to clear the stones from the base of the other, pulling the two together. With their weight and some trick of construction working to hold them closed, Jeirran turned his back on the gates, untied his pony and beat the reluctant beast into a weary canter.
The Chamber of Planir the Black,
Archmage of Hadrumal,
1st of For-Summer
A hesitant rap on the outside of the door was followed by a more confident knock.
“Enter.” The single occupant of the room was relaxing in a leather-upholstered chair by one of the tall lancets of the window. He did not look up from the closely written letter he was reading. Sunlight brightened the dark wood-paneled room with sparkling fingers playing on the expensive mossy carpet, the polished furniture and the orderly rows of books and scrolls on the numerous shelves. The heavy black oak opened noiselessly on well-tended hinges.