Shadows of Destiny
Before Tess could question her, the woman had vanished back into the shadows. For a second or two, she could hear the quiet murmur of the voice again.
Then she was alone in the clearing with only the white wolf.
He nudged her hand with his cool, damp nose and she blinked.
And gasped. For she no longer stood in the clearing at all, nor was it any longer dark.
Dawn was breaking over the mountains to the east, wreathed in red and pink and orange, the globe of the sun not yet visible.
Nor was she in her bed. She stood halfway between Anahar and the compound housing the Bozandari prisoners of war.
The frigid morning air made her cheeks sting, but she was still surprisingly warm. Looking down at herself, she saw that she had dressed in her fine white woolens and boots, with her cloak about her shoulders. Had she done that in her sleep?
A sound behind her made her swing sharply around, and she gasped as she saw the wolf was still with her.
What was going on? Had she been dreaming? Or had she been awake in some netherworld? Had long-dead Ilduin really spoken to her?
Or was she simply losing her mind?
But then the wolf came toward her and shoved his big, soft head beneath her hand. Instinctively she scratched him behind the ears, and marveled at how silky his coat felt.
She must have been sleepwalking, she thought. Thank goodness she had dressed before setting out from Anahar. Else she would be frozen and dead right now, it was that cold.
She was about to return to the city on the hillside when the wolf tipped back his head and howled. It was a beautiful sound, music unto itself.
And it was answered. Tess felt her scalp prickle as wolves howled back from the awkward, hardy trees that made life for themselves in the green desert that was the Anari lands. The sound was eerie, as eerie as anything she had ever heard. There must have been dozens of them.
But then they emerged from the trees, still howling, a harmony among their voices that reverberated until it sounded as if they numbered in the several dozens. But there were only seven more of them, all as white as the one that stood beneath her hand.
She should have been terrified. She should have fled. She should have tried to call on her powers for protection. Instead she remained rooted to the spot as the wolf pack ran toward her, their yellow eyes bright, mouths relaxed in smiles, as if they were coming home.
When they reached her, their howling stopped and they began to make quiet whimpers and whines as they swirled around her legs, sniffing her as if to learn her. Then, as if by silent order, all seven sat on their haunches and looked up at her.
She spoke, not knowing what else to do. “What do you want?”
The only answer she received was from the pack leader. His head moved from beneath her hand so that he could tug at her robe with his mouth.
He pulled her gently.
Toward the prison compound.
And all the others followed, as if they were tamed beasts at her beck and call. But she knew otherwise, and wondered what it all meant.
Ras Lutte, formerly overmark of the Bozandari army, approached his ruler slowly, as if hoping to avoid notice. He had news to bring, and bring it he must, for such was his duty. But he knew the meaning of the dour visage upon the throne, a face that seemed to bear the weight of the gods themselves upon its features. Lutte was all too familiar with that expression. It had been months, it seemed, since his ruler had borne any other.
Yet the ruler was still an astonishingly beautiful man, fair of complexion, golden of hair, blue of eye. To Lutte and others, it seemed he might even be the spawn of the gods, for never had a man so handsome and charismatic ever been seen before.
Until this brooding had begun.
But at least no one died from these silent broodings.
“My lord,” Lutte finally said, after placing his right fist to his heart and bowing at the waist. “I pray that I disturb thee not, yet the woman has spoken.”
The man on the throne looked up slowly, as if all of his strength were required simply to lift his head. Lutte could not be certain, but he thought he saw tears in his ruler’s eyes. Immediately, Lutte lowered his gaze to the floor. Such things were not to be seen.
“What is it, Overmark?” the ruler asked, each word seeming to wend its way from the bottom of a deep cavern.
“The Weaver summons the wolves, my lord. Soon, the woman says, the Enemy host will march.”
The man’s eyes closed for a moment, then he nodded. “Just as it was foretold.”
Lutte knew little of prophecy and trusted less than he knew. He was loathe even to trust the woman who sat in her room like the shell of a human being, hardly taking even food or drink, her body nearly as desiccated in life as any Lutte had seen in death.
He was a man of science and mathematics, the science and mathematics of war. Born into the Bozandari peerage, trained in the Academy of War, tested in battle, proved in a half-dozen campaigns. His exile after an affair with a topmark’s wife had not changed his nature. It was possible to take the soldier out of the army, but never to take the army out of the soldier. Now he had found another army, and he had taken to the task of training the ragged band of outlaws and exiles into a smoothly functioning fist to be wielded at his will.
But not his will. The will of his ruler. And the will of his ruler was guided by prophecy and the mumblings of the woman. It was, Lutte thought, a shaky foundation upon which to base a campaign. But he had learned loyalty in the academy, and his personal dalliances aside, his professional loyalty was a matter of pride.
He relayed the woman’s words as if they were those of the most accomplished spy, not because he trusted her or her ramblings, but because it was his duty to do so.
“If this is so,” Lutte said, “then our agents in Bozandar must be at their task. Surely Bozandar can crush the slave people and end this rebellion.”
“Bozandar will not be our ally,” the ruler said. “In the end, it will come to us and us alone. It will come to me. For only I can slay my brother.”
Again he is on about his brother, Lutte thought. As if the rest of the world were mere pawns in this sibling rivalry. Lutte had heard the whispers, that his ruler was in fact the second son of the Firstborn King, but he did not believe them. The children of the Firstborn were long dead, if ever they had existed. Lutte needed no ancient good or evil to empower him. The evil of the human heart more than sufficed to afflict the world. And only the good of the human heart could bring it comfort. The rest were tales, legends, myths told to fortify the sheep against the hardness of life, and make the sheep compliant within it.
“Is there anything else?” the ruler asked.
“No, my lord.”
“Then go,” the ruler said. “Tend to your numbers and your geometries. And pray that you never stand on a field where straight lines bend and twice two is not four.”
He did not read my mind, Lutte thought as he bowed and turned to leave. His face had betrayed his skepticism, and his ruler knew of his reputation. It was nothing more.
What a pity, Ardred thought as Lutte left. What a pity that such a talented young mind should lack the most essential of all knowledge: the numbering of the gods, the geometry of the soul.
Lutte was a good soldier, but poor counsel. What he lacked, Ardred most needed. For no man can make war upon his brother with lightness of heart, whatever their past. Once, Ardred had laid siege to Annuvil. Now Annuvil would come to lay siege to Ardred.
Lutte thought he knew what danger lay when two men loved a woman, for such had been his crime. But he knew nothing at all.
Ardred must kill his brother. The world could not be stitched back together until Annuvil was dead. Only then would the glory and true power return.
And all this for the love of a single woman.
Theriel.
Chapter Three
The rustle began at the edges of the Bozandar camp. Muted gasps and movements filtered through the camp as if through the muscles and sinew of a waking giant, slowly willing it into motion. Tuzza put down his pen and emerged from his tent, his senses alert for any hint of danger or malice. He felt none, and slowly made his way through the gathering throng of soldiers at the eastern fence.
“It cannot be!” one man whispered.
“They cannot live so far south!” another added.
“My eyes deceive me, for they bend to her!”
Tuzza shouldered his way through until he could see for himself what had caused such a stir. And his mouth dropped open.
There stood Lady Tess, a semicircle of snow wolves arrayed behind her, silent yet alert, their eyes fixed on her as if she were their pack leader. One of them, however, stood beside her, golden eyes searching among the soldiers until at last they fixed on Tuzza. A shiver ran through him as he made eye contact with the beast, a recognition of something preternatural and unexplainable.
So it was true.
Tuzza instinctively lowered himself to one knee and bowed. He had no need to speak, for his men were still soldiers, whatever their current lot. They knelt with him.
“Rise, Topmark Tuzza,” the woman said, her voice quiet but firm. She spread her hands behind her, indicating the wolves. Then the fingers of one hand returned to rest on the head of the snow-white beast beside her. “Rise and make way for your Lady and her court.”
“Fall in!” Tuzza commanded.
Some, those whom fortune had placed at the rear of the battles and who had not needed her healing touch, grumbled. But they were the fewer, and the looks of their comrades shamed them into obedience.
“Dress ranks!” Tuzza said.
Even in those who grumbled, the first act of obedience had rekindled the training and drill that countless hours had transformed into automatic responses. The men adjusted their spacing, and soon stood in lines so straight that they might have been set down by a surveyor.
Tuzza faced Lady Tess. “My men stand ready, m’lady. We are at your service.”
“Very well,” Tess said, now striding toward them as if she were gliding on air, the wolves in her train.
She marched to the front of the formation, then turned to face them. Once again the wolves took up their places behind and at her side. When she spoke, her voice was clear and strong, a bell ringing in the soul itself.
“I am she who was foretold,” Tess said. While she loathed the words and what they meant, she knew their truth. She could not hide from herself any longer. “Believe, or disbelieve. But disbelief will be your doom, for you will disbelieve that which you now see for yourselves. Topmark Tuzza stands at my service. Where stand you?”
For long moments, the host stood frozen. Tuzza stepped forward and ranged himself beside the lady. Now, perhaps, he could quell the unrest in his ranks and refashion from them an army. He spoke quietly, yet pitching his voice to reach even the most distant of ears among his men. “The days we learned about as children, the days we thought were mere tales fashioned for our amusement, have arrived. While we may have to fight our brethren, our purpose is not to bring about the fall of Bozandar, but her salvation. For the Enemy we fight would bring the death of all.
“Stand with me, my men, for the sake of your families, for the sake of your children yet unborn. For if we do not stand now, we shall face the fate of the Firstborn, and never shall our names be heard again.”
He could see his men wavering, uncertain in their loyalties. Outside the walls of the compound, however, the Anari guards bent their knees and made signs of fealty toward the Lady Tess. Then the wolves began to keen, a sound that made the hair on the back of a man’s neck rise, that sent a tingle running along even the bravest spine.
With a simple movement of her hand, the lady silenced the wolves, a sight so shocking that many doubtful hearts were swayed.
“Brave men of Bozandar,” she said, “declare yourselves now, for your entire future is writ in this moment.”
A ripple of movement ran through the ranks, and when stillness again returned, every soldier had knelt.
The lady opened her arms and turned her face heavenward. To those with eyes to see, she almost seemed to glow a pale blue, an aura that enveloped the wolves at her feet. Then snow began to fall, gently, sparkling in the rising dawn light, looking almost like blood. Above, gray clouds churned, marked red here and there as the sun rose above the mountains.
“He brings the snow,” the lady said. “He seeks to destroy you with cold and hunger. He would murder your brothers and leave barren the wombs of your sisters. He would strike from the fabric of time your very existence. I will not let this be.”
Reaching up with one hand, she appeared to grasp something in the air and twist it. A sudden wind sprang up, strong enough to make men lean. As it blew, it drove the clouds away, clearing the sky until it was the perfect blue of dawn.
The lady lowered her arm and looked at all the men kneeling before her. “Rise,” she said. “You have chosen wisely this day. I will arrange better accommodations for you as swiftly as I can. May Elanor bless you and your families.”
Then she turned and exited the compound, the wolves a protective phalanx around her.
In the Bozandari compound, the murmuring and even arguments continued throughout the day. Some refused to believe what they had seen. The vast majority, however, believed their own senses, and eventually argued the dissenters into silence.
The strongest voices among them were the voices who had seen Tess on the battlefield, those who had seen or experienced her healing and that of her sisters.
Such magicks had long vanished from the world, and had long been thought to be silly tales. Now those who had seen with their own eyes no longer could deny the truth of the stories.
Tuzza chose to remain mostly out of sight this day, while the discussions raged outside his tent. His men had elected to offer fealty to the lady, and he never doubted that they would keep that oath. Honor was held in the highest esteem by the Bozandari army, and these men would not go back on their words. Yet still they might argue about what they had seen and what it meant.
Toward evening, as the sky reddened again to the west and the camp began to settle for another cold night, Archer Blackcloak, he who was Annuvil, came to the prison camp to speak with Tuzza.
The first thing Tuzza noted was that Master Archer, as he preferred to be called, seemed to have grown somehow since last they spoke. It was as if in shouldering the burdens left to him by his heritage, as if in announcing his true identity, Archer had grown physically as well as figuratively. The lines of care and suffering still carved his face deeply, but they only enhanced the sense of power about him.
Tuzza offered him wine, and the two of them sat at the wooden camp table, the map of the Bozandari world between them.
“I heard,” Archer said, “that the lady paid you a visit early this morning.”
“Aye, she did. With eight white wolves.”
Archer’s mouth lifted in a smile. “That must have commanded attention.”
“I am not certain what commanded the most attention—the wolves or when she stopped the snow and drove away the clouds.” Tuzza, who had believed himself to be the most unsurprisable of men, nevertheless sounded awed as he spoke of the lady banishing the storm.
Archer nodded and sipped his wine. “She is full of surprises, that one. Nor does she yet know all she can do.”
“A wild talent?”
“At times. For some reason, the gods deprived her of all memory when they brought her to me and my friends. Whatever she may have known before, all is lost. She knows only what she learns with each passing day.”
“Then she has learned a great deal.”
Archer nodded. “Quite a bit in such a short time.”
“I hear the Anari guards referring to her as the Weaver. Do they mean the one foretold?”
There was a glint in Archer’s eye. “What think you, Tuzza? Did she reach out and cast away a storm?”
“I saw it with my own eyes.” He looked down into his wine and breathed, “The Weaver. I never thought to see such a thing.”
“Few of us did. I do not mind saying that living in the times foretold by prophecy will bring little joy to most of us.”
“No. These will be hard times.”
“The hardest. We will all be sorely tested. Sorely indeed.” He caught Tuzza’s gaze and held it. “All we will have, brother, is trust in one another. I cannot tell you how important that will be.”
“You call me brother?”
“Aye, for you are about to share my burden. And no joyous road it will be.”
“I am honored, my lord.”
“Speak to me of honor when we have passed through this shadow and can clasp hands on the other side.” Archer shook his head. “I have known for centuries that this time approached, yet I am no more ready to face it than I ever was. And it grieves me that others must share my burden, for if I had chosen to act differently long ago, this would never have come about.”
“And I might never have been born and never have seen my children grow to adulthood.”
Archer smiled faintly. “You are very positive.”
“One must be positive to lead an army.”
“Aye, it is so.”
They sat quietly together for a while, sipping their wine, a silent camaraderie growing between them.
The first to break the silence was Archer. “Do you trust your men?”
“Aye. We regard honor very highly.”
Archer nodded, then leaned closer. “Watch them nonetheless, brother. For he has ways of taking over the minds of men. You have heard of the hives?”
“Aye, but I have never met one.”
“You will, before this is done. He draws men into his sway, then bends their will to his. He can even occupy one of them if he wishes. It is as if they have only a single mind, and it is strange to see how they work in concert. That is how he controls his armies.”
Tuzza looked appalled and took a deep draft of his wine. “That will worry me.”
“It should. Once he takes them over, they even lose their fear of mortality. It is unforgivable that he uses them thus, but he does and you must be prepared for it. And you must ever be wary that he might take control of some of your soldiers. For he will certainly try.”
“How can I guard against it?”
“I know of no way to stop it. But when it happens…Ilduin blood judges harshly. Be wary and tell your men to be wary. And know this. While your men may hesitate at the thought of battle with other Bozandari, those whom he holds will not hesitate to cut your men down like chaff.”
After a few moments of clearly pained thought, Tuzza refilled their wine goblets. “Then tonight, my lord brother, we must enjoy the fruits of the earth and the gifts of the gods, for we cannot know when our hour will come.”
Archer raised his goblet in toast and took a deep drink. “We need information about what is happening to the north of Bozandar. Since the rebellion, your armies have made it all but impossible to send scouts in that direction. If there is any way you can get news, I will be grateful. It is never wise to march blind to meet an enemy.”
Tuzza nodded. “I will find a way.”
“I’m sure by now an army marches to your rescue. Ponder on this, Tuzza, for I would not engage them in battle and waste lives needlessly. We must find a way to prevent the fight and convince them to join us.”
“That will be even harder than today was.”
“Aye. I have some notion of the stiff spines of the Bozandar army. And whether you believe it or not, the Anari are every bit as stiff-spined. I would avoid the bloodshed if we can. We are going to need every able man to fight the evil that comes.”
Tuzza’s mouth framed a wry smile. “And apparently we will need some Ilduin as well.”
“Aye, for he has corrupted at least two that we know of, and there may be more.”
“Fire must be fought with fire.”
“Sad to say. I would not corrupt these women in any way, had I the choice.”
Tuzza sighed. “I think they will not be corrupted, my lord. They will see what they should not see, and perhaps do things they will regret, but they will understand why the choices were forced upon them, as any good soldier does.”
“I hope you are right. The three who are with us seem somehow steeped in unassailable purity. I fear it will not last.”
“War carries a heavy toll. But perhaps Lady Tess can travel with me to meet the advancing army. If she could do for them what she did for us today, my job of persuasion would be ever so much easier.”
Archer lifted a brow. “You will not ride alone regardless, Tuzza. For I will not have you called traitor and carried away in shackles. You are no traitor, and we need you.”
“Treason is in the eye of the beholder, Master Archer. My emperor will not see my actions as anything other.”
“Then we need to enlighten him as well.”
Tuzza almost laughed. “He is not an easy man to persuade.”
“Perhaps he has never been swayed before by an Ilduin.”
“Certainly not by the Weaver.”
Archer’s expression grew grave. “She must be guarded at all costs, Tuzza. Ardred will stop at nothing to claim her. The mere fact that prophecy predicted her appearance is no guarantee of safety. The days and weeks to come hold no guarantees. At this point, the future is no longer writ, even for the most gifted of prophets.”
Tuzza’s answering nod was grim. “I understand, my lord.”
“Tomorrow I would take you into Anahar with me to meet my lieutenant Ratha. It is time for us to forge bonds between us, and we must forge them like the finest steel if we are to withstand the onslaught to come.”
“It will be no easy task.”
“No part of this task will be easy. The faint of heart may as well flee right now.”
“There are no faint hearts in this camp, my lord.”
“Nor in mine. But we will come across them, just as we will come across enemies stronger than you now imagine.”
“I have seen what the lady can do, Lord Annuvil. Trust me, I can imagine.”
Chapter Four
We should listen in, Cilla thought, an impish smile on her dark features as she met Tess’s eyes.
Without a doubt, Tess agreed, meeting her gaze. She was still sometimes surprised at the ease with which she and her Ilduin sisters could touch each other’s minds, and remembered the first time she had noticed this ability, as Sara and Tom had demonstrated their love for each other.
Ahem! Cilla and Tess immediately looked to Sara’s window, where Sara was glaring back at them with a mock stern expression. Can a girl have a bit of privacy, please?
Cilla put a hand to her mouth to suppress a laugh, mirth dancing in her eyes. But sister, you are the only hope we have!
Get your own man, Sara thought with a toss of her head, followed by a wink.
I’m trying, Cilla thought. I’m trying.
Tess laughed aloud and drew Cilla aside. “Come, sister. Let us walk together and leave sweet Sara to enjoy her new marriage.”
“Of course,” Cilla said. “’Twas only sport.”
“And pleasant sport at that,” Tess said, her smile fading. “But as our men have gone to discuss things manly, perhaps we should take the opportunity to advance our own knowledge.”
They walked toward the temple slowly, as if reluctant to end the celebratory mood and resume the hard work that lay before them. Even Tess’s visit to the Bozandari camp had seemed almost a royal visit, born of a dream. The snow wolves had slipped away into the hills around Anahar, and now, even with Cilla beside her, she felt very alone as she walked to face the gods.
“Have you any news of Ratha?” Tess asked.
“He has withdrawn within himself,” Cilla said, shaking her head. “I try to tell him it was not his fault that Giri fell, that it is not wise to grieve alone, but he will hear none of it.”