“But where am I now?” Kelene asked the sky above.
I believe you are with me above Moy Tura,
Demira answered for the cloudless sky. When Kelene didn’t respond to her teasing humour, the mare cast a quick look back.
You are certainly pensive today.
Kelene’s hands tightened on the leather flying harness Rafnir had made for her. It was the only tack the Hunnuli wore. “This morning was fun, Demira. I needed it.”
But it has not helped.
Kelene snorted in disgust. “Moy Tura is still nothing more than a heap of rubble. For every building we clear out or rebuild, there are a hundred more to do. We can’t get enough help. No one wants to leave their comfortable clan to come live in some cold, draughty, haunted pile of rock and, since the plague, there aren’t even enough magic-wielders to go around the clans, let alone resettle Moy Tura. The clan chiefs won’t support us. And where in Amara’s name are the city wells? The Korg told us there were cisterns, but he couldn’t remember where.
Why can’t we find them?”
Kelene stumbled to a startled silence. She hadn’t meant to explode with such an outburst; it just came pouring out, probably loosened by the first taste of spring after a long winter’s drudgery.
Actually you have accomplished a great deal,
Demira reminded her in a cool, matter-of-fact manner.
You learned the craft of healing, you are an accomplished sorceress, and you are the only clanswoman to do an inside loop.
Kelene laughed at that. The “inside loop” was a trick she and Demira had accomplished — once. It had scared the wits out of them and sent Rafnir into fits of rage at their foolhardiness. He had promptly constructed the flying harness to hold Kelene on Demira’s back and forbade them from flying without it. Kelene had to admit it proved very useful.
“Looking at it that way, you’re right,” Kelene conceded.
But Demira knew her rider’s every nuance of speech and character.
It is not just the city that bothers you, is it? You have been there only three years. You knew it would not grow overnight.
“No,” said Kelene, her voice flat. “It is not just the city.” She couldn’t go on. There was one fear left she could not put voice to, one emptiness inside her that ached with a cold dread and made every other setback more difficult to face. After all, what good was building a home if there were no children to fill it? She had not said anything to Rafnir about her inability to bear babes, nor he to her, but she felt his disappointment and concern as poignantly as her own.
Perhaps that was why she was struck with such a desire to see Lady Gabria again. Her mother would provide a loving, sympathetic ear for her worries, and maybe she could suggest something Kelene had overlooked. Unfortunately, there was too much to do at Moy Tura to even consider a journey to Khulinin Treld.
The young woman sighed again. The clans would be gathering at the Tir Samod in three months’ time. Maybe Rafnir would agree to go this year. They needed various tools, herbs, and foodstuffs even magic couldn’t supply, and they could use the time to talk to other magic-wielders. Surely there were a few who would be willing to give Moy Tura a helping hand. Kelene could then talk to her mother and share her anxieties. Until that time she would have to be patient. As Demira pointed out, neither cities nor babies grew overnight.
Kelene was about to ask Demira to land when the Hunnuli turned her head to the south.
Someone is coming,
she announced.
Kelene’s spirits rose a little. It was always pleasant to see someone new. “Who?” she asked.
In reply the mare veered away from the ruins and followed the pale track of the old southern road where it cut across the top of the plateau. At the edge of the highland the trail dropped over to wend its way down to the lower grasslands.
He is there, on the lower trail. Coming fast.
Kelene saw him then, a rider on a black horse cantering up to the foot of the plateau. Her heart caught a beat when she recognized the colour of his clan cloak. Every clan had its own individual colour to identify its members, a colour that was always dyed into the comfortable, versatile cloaks the people wore. This rider, who was obviously heading for Moy Tura, wore the golden yellow of the Khulinin.
At Kelene’s request, Demira landed at the top of the trail and waited for the rider to climb the plateau. Kelene tried not to fidget, yet she couldn’t help straining to look over the edge. Her parents did not send messengers often, only when the news was important. She mused, too, over the coincidence of her wish to visit her parents and the arrival of their messenger on the same morning.
The rider came at last, his Hunnuli winded and sweating. He raised his head at Kelene’s greeting and grinned a very tired and dusty reply. The stallion climbed the last few feet of the incline, topped the trail, and came to a grateful halt beside Demira.
“Kelene! I thought I saw a big black vulture hovering over that dead ruin.” The rider’s weathered face crinkled around his green eyes.
Demira snorted indignantly.
“Veneg,” Kelene addressed the Hunnuli stallion. “How do you put up with him?”
He is rude only to people he likes. Everyone else he ignores,
Veneg replied with tired good nature.
The young woman laughed. “Gaalney, he knows you too well.” She paused, taking in for the first time the man’s exhausted pallor, his dirty clothes, and the nearly empty travel packs on the Hunnuli’s back. These two had travelled long and hard. “Are my—” she began to say.
Gaalney rushed to assure her. “Lord Athlone and Lady Gabria are fine and send their greetings. My message is ill news, but it is for Sayyed and Rafnir, as well as for you.”
“Then save your words and tell them once before us all.” She gestured north toward the city. “Come. There is food and drink in Moy Tura and a proper welcome.”
Side by side the two Hunnuli cantered slowly along the old road to the city. The pace gave Kelene a little time to study the man beside her. Gaalney was a distant cousin to her father. He was a young man, rash at times, but with a dauntless courage that helped him excel in his studies of magic. He had stiff yellow hair cut much shorter than she remembered, full green eyes, and a thin mouth that always seemed to lift in a quirk of a smile. She also noticed he had a newly healed wound on his neck just below his ear.
They rode in silence until they reached the tumbled walls of the once-great city of the sorcerers. As they approached, Kelene glanced at Gaalney to see what his reaction would be. She was used to the massive entrance by now, but newcomers were always impressed. Gaalney was no exception.
The horses slowed to a walk, and Gaalney ran his eyes over the repaired stonework, whistling in appreciation. Kelene smiled. She, Rafnir, and the Korg had worked very hard to restore the old gateway. Although it was one of four entrances into Moy Tura, it was the only one they had repaired so far. Most visitors came on the southern road to this gate, and Rafnir wanted to give them a good first impression. The gate was a huge, arched opening between two powerful towers. Both towers had been rebuilt down to the decorative stonework around the defensive crenellations. The road was repaired and repaved with new stone slabs, the archway was cleaned of several hundred years’ worth of grime and old debris, and a golden banner hung above the arch.
The best touch of all, to Kelene’s mind, was the restoration of the two stone lions that had once guarded the gateway. Crouched in perpetual attention, the beasts stood to either side of the road and fixed their red-jewelled eyes on travellers who approached the city.
Gaalney looked at both lions and shook his head. “They’re magnificent.” The horses walked together through the gateway, and the young man waved a hand at the stone arch. “Is this any indication of your progress in the city?”
Kelene reached out to run her fingers along the cold, smooth stone. The old wards in the gates were still intact — they had saved her life once — and she felt their ancient potency tingle on the tips of her fingers. She drew strength from their presence, a power that had
endured for generations, and she drove her own frustrations and worries back into the dark recesses of her mind from where the wind had shaken them loose. Smiling now, she rode Demira out from the shadow of the stone into the sunlight and pointed to the city walls that still lay in tumbled ruins.
“Well, no,” she acknowledged. “That is more like the rest of the city. We’ve had some problems the past few years. Clanspeople have lost the art of working stone.”
She did not elaborate further, allowing Gaalney to see for himself. The outlying areas of the city along the walls were as yet untouched. The buildings lay in crumbled heaps where the attackers and the elements had left them. In this part of Moy Tura only the main road was cleared and repaired. The rest of the wind-haunted ruins remained as they had since the Purge.
Gaalney was quiet as they rode. His eyes tracked back and forth over the devastation and slowly filled with wonder. “How can you live here?” he questioned. “All this would depress me too much.”
His choice of words startled Kelene, and she freely admitted, “It depresses me, too, sometimes.”
“Then why do you stay here? Why don’t you come home?” Gaalney asked, voicing a question Kelene was certain a number of people had wondered.
Before she would form a sensible reply — if there was one — Gaalney’s face transformed into a picture of delight. They had been riding along one of the major roads that led to the inner heart of the city where the primary public buildings had once stood. One such edifice sat to the left of the road in grand, shining eminence among the destroyed bones of its neighbours.
It was a temple, built three hundred years before to the glory of the holy quartet of gods worshiped by the clans. The Korg, before he died, had restored the temple as his gift to Kelene and Rafnir. With the last of his strength, before his worn and aged body had faded, he
used his knowledge and magic to return the large temple to its previous magnificence. Now, shining in the sun, the white marble building sat as a fitting monument to the Korg and his wish to protect and restore his city. When he died, Kelene and Rafnir buried him at the foot of the large altar that graced the central sanctuary.
“And I thought all you had fixed was the gate,” Gaalney laughed, obviously impressed.
Kelene, observing her cousin’s delight, looked at the temple anew for the first time in a long while. She had been so used to working on other ruined buildings, she had momentarily forgotten how lovely this one was. She nodded and thought of her friend, the Korg. Two years after his death she still missed him deeply. “That is the Temple of the Gods,” she explained. “The Korg hoped they would bless our efforts here in the city if we restored their sacred temple.”
“And have they?”
“More or less,” Kelene replied dryly. “Come on, Rafnir should be back at our house by now.”
Gaalney made no reply but followed Kelene and Demira along the road, past a stone wall and several piles of rubble, to the wide central square of the city. The huge open space in the very heart of Moy Tura had once been a market and gathering place for the entire community. Its broad expanse was paved with slabs of granite, and at its centre, where the four main roads of the city converged, a tall, black obelisk towered nearly twenty feet into the air. Atop the obelisk hung a golden rayed sun, the emblem of the goddess Amara.
Kelene watched the Khulinin sorcerer gaze around at the city of his ancestors, and she saw the subtle shift of expression on his face, from awe to anger. It was a change she had witnessed on many magic-wielders’ faces. It would have been very difficult not to feel anything. The rage that had massacred an entire population still lay mutely evident in the shattered wreckage of the old square, where skeletons of walls and hollow foundations lined the open space.
The grand Sorcerers’ Hall showed the worst of the attackers’ fury, for its desecrated remains still had unmistakable signs of heat fractures and scorch marks from a large fire. It was known from the Korg’s tale that the attackers had thrown hundreds of bodies into the burning Sorcerers’ Hall — and Kelene believed it. Two hundred years had not been enough time in this semi-arid land to totally erase the bits of ash, remnants of bone, and the black stains of soot that still lay in the cracks and crevices of the mined stones of the hall. She and Rafnir had made no attempt to restore any part of the old foundation.
But if the square had been the scene of tragedy, it was also the centre of returning life — little to be sure, but life nonetheless. Turning away from the dead hall, Kelene pointed Gaalney toward a side street where he could see several restored buildings just off the square. At the corner of the street and facing the square was a house of some dignity, completely rebuilt, and gleaming in the sun like a pearl among dross. It was the house Kelene and Rafnir had chosen when they moved to Moy Tura. Broad, open, and airy, it was a comfortable abode for people used to living in cramped, movable tents. It had taken Kelene some time to adjust to the differences in housekeeping, but now she loved the house and called it home.
Gaalney’s tired face lightened when he saw it.
“There is a guest hall down that street,” Kelene told him. “You may leave your things there and clean up if you wish while I find Sayyed. Rafnir should be at our house for his midday meal. Join us there. If Veneg would like to rest, there is a stable by the guest hall or he can join the other horses out in the fields.”
Gaalney’s mouth lifted in his quirky smile. “Guest hall, huh? How many people do you have here?”