Hennea stalked behind Kors, the canvas bag that held her needles and woolen thread clutched tightly in one hand. Her anger was partly self-disgust. She knew better than to getinvolved; that always brought unnecessary pain. Poor Moselm... he'd been such a kind man, uncomplicated. They'd been lovers before they'd been taken, but it had been little more than a convenience to both. Moselm's wife had died several years before of one of the mysterious ailments that plagued the Traveling clans. They had come together for comfort.
But it was the Traveler's lot in life to confront things that no one else would face. If Moselm's death brought the light of destruction to the Path, he would have counted his life well-spent. But Jes...
There was no peace in dying among kinsfolk - and Hennea, like Seraph, knew that every minute that Jes spent collared by the foundrael brought him that much nearer to madness and a merciful death at the hands of those who loved him. She didn't want to do that ever again.
That Travelers would come to this, Travelers sworn and taught to aid the solsenti. For gold and hatred they betrayed their oaths, and put a good man at risk - perhaps they all deserved the fate that the solsenti intended to mete out.
Kors, subdued and somber with doubt, led Hennea toward one of the more distant campsites. The clansfolk they encountered on the way bowed their heads and refused to look her in the eye. They knew, she saw, and they were ashamed - but angry at the guilt they felt. Before long, she thought, they'd turn that guilt into righteous indignation.
See what the solsenti have turned us into, they would say to one another, so lacking in pride that they could not even accept the responsibility for their own downfall.
Kors stopped in front of a large tent and they both heard Isfain's harsh voice snap out. "Sit here and wait, boy, as I told you. Your mother has business with Benroln and then you may do as you wish."
Hennea's eyebrows climbed. "Supposed to be keeping him calm, is he?" she murmured to Kors, pleased when she saw that he was unhappy with what they'd just heard as well.
She swept open the tent with none of the usual courtesies. Isfain was standing in front of her and she shoved him ungently aside to see Jes perched unhappily on a tall stool in the middle of the tent. It was the only object in the tent - if Benroln had indeed given orders to keep Jes calm he had failed marvelously.
"Woman, watch what you do!" snapped Isfain.
Evidently, he didn't care for her entrance. She ignored him.
"Hennea," Jes said in soft-spoken relief. "I need to see Mother." One hand rubbed at the leather strap he wore around his neck, turning it about as if to find a buckle or lacing that wasn't there. To Hennea's eyes the leather was as smooth as if it had just grown around his neck.
"What are you doing here?" said Isfain. "Does Benroln know you are here?"
She ignored him again.
"It's all right, Jes," she said to the dark young man sitting restlessly on the battered old stool. "Benroln wants to force your mother to curse some poor farmer's land for money. They're holding you with an artifact that keeps your other spirit at bay - there's nothing wrong with you. Lehr went with your mother."
She didn't know how much he'd understand in his current state so she was gratified when Jes's swaying slowed down.
"They are safe?" he said.
"I don't think that Benroln will be able to do anything to Seraph that she doesn't want to happen. Lehr is with her."
He swallowed, "And you are safe here."
"Yes," she agreed. "I'm safe with you. Would you help me with my knitting until your mother's business is completed?"
She opened her bag and gave him a skein that she'd tangled just for this purpose. After a little hesitation he took it from her. He stared at it for a minute, but at last his long-fingered hands began to work patiently at untangling knots. The rough wool thread had a mind of its own, and it would take a while to unravel the mess she'd made.
She settled at his feet and began knitting with a ball he'd rolled for her yesterday. She leaned lightly against his leg, prepared to shift away if she made him uncomfortable. The long muscles of his thigh softened and relaxed, so she let him take a bit more of her weight.
She glanced into his eyes and saw the fury trapped impotently in the net of the foundrael. She shivered and looked back at the sweater she knitted. For a while he seemed calmer. Perhaps if the tent had not been so starkly furnished, or if that idiot Isfain had quit looking at Jes as if he expected him to explode, Jes would have been all right.
"I don't like this," said Jes, abruptly throwing his yarn on the ground. "I need... I need to be somewhere."
Hennea looked up at him and saw the despair in his eyes. Enough, she thought. "Wait a moment," she told him.
Kors was not a problem. He knew what was right when someone shoved it in his face, as much as he wished he didn't. Isfain, though, Isfain might be more difficult.
He was one of those gifted with magic, though not Ordered. Hennea knew that other Ravens had a tendency to look upon unordered mages as weak, but she was not so foolish. A good wizard used subtlety as well as power, and like a well-knit wool sweater, their spells could be difficult to unravel.
The trick with wizards was not to give them time to do anything.
"Isfain," she said simply. "Hush, be still."
It wouldn't have been worth doing to a Raven, because they needed neither word nor movement to call magic. A wizard could call magic that way, too - but it was a poor business they made of it. It would be a long time before Isfain worked his way free of her binding.
"What?" asked Kors incredulously, surprised at Hennea's rudeness.
She put her knitting away carefully, then she took the yarn Jes had thrown and set it in the top of her bag. Time enough later to unspell it so it could be organized more easily.
"He's too far," she said.
"What do you mean?" asked Kors, who still hadn't noticed that Isfain was now immobile because of her magic. He didn't know what she was.
"Have you ever seen a Guardian released from the foundrael?" she asked. "It's not bad if they haven't been upset - but your Isfain precluded that."
"Mother," said Jes sadly.
She nodded. "I know. Lehr will keep her from harm, but that is your job. To protect your family."
"Yes," he said.
She turned to Kors. "If I were you I'd leave this tent, so that you aren't the first thing he sees when he's free."
She'd given him warning enough. If he didn't choose to follow... she relaxed as she heard him leave. Really, Kors wasn't a bad sort.
"All right, Jes, I'm going to take this thing off."
She reached up, but he caught her hands. "Can't. Benroln said only him."
"Well," Hennea said. "I'm not as powerful as your mother, Jes, but I have spent a long time studying. I think I know how to take the blasted thing off. I'll not lie to you, there is some danger - but not as much as leaving it on."
"To me," he said, catching her hands before she could touch the foundrael. "Not you."
"Only to you," she lied, but she'd had a lot of practice lying and it came out like the truth.
He let her set her hands on the soft band around his neck. The leather was soft and new-looking, as if it had been tanned yesterday instead of centuries ago. That made it easier, because she knew which one it was.
"No," he said, pulling her hands away again.
"It's all right," she said.
"No," Jes said again. "The Guardian will kill the big man. That would be bad. He thinks that killing would be very bad for us. Killing is bad, but he would have no choice. He is very angry."
Hennea considered him. Everyone had a tendency, she thought, to ignore the daylight Jes in their fear of the Guardian. Oh, Seraph loved him in either guise, but she treated him with the same indulgence and discipline that she treated their dog and the others followed her example.
Jes, thought Hennea, was more than just a disguise where the Guardian resided. Impulsively she put her hand, still clasped loosely by his, on his cheek. He closed his eyes and leaned against it, moving so the light stubble, new-grown since his shaving this morning, prickled her fingers.
He was just a boy, she thought, uncomfortable with the instant response his innocently sensual gesture had called from her.
He might be right about killing. The Order of the Eagle came only to people who were empathic, a rare gift and usually weak. If Jes were a strong enough empath, killing might very well be enough to damage him.
"The Guardian won't calm until we take it off, Jes. He'll just feel worse and worse," she said, though she didn't move her hand from his face. "The longer we wait the more difficult it will be."
He nodded, but didn't open his eyes. "He's so angry," he said. Dark lashes brushed her fingertips, and she shivered.
He looked at her then, his eyes dark and hungry. "You could make him not angry," said Jes. "He likes you, too. Kiss me."
His suggestion startled her. She'd never heard of anyone trying something like this. Likely because only an idiot would think of kissing an angry Guardian.
Her lips were still canted in a smile when they touched his. It was an innocent kiss at first, because he called that from her - though not without arousal. His lips were a little chafed, and the rough surface scraped hers in butterfly-wing caresses.
She could feel him tense when her hands touched his neck again, so she opened her mouth to nip lightly at his lips, distracting him from what she did.
It distracted her, too - but not so much that she fumbled the Unlocking.
As soon as she finished, fear washed through the tent like a flash flood, taking her breath with its strength. She dug her fingers into Jes's shoulders, which had turned to iron. But he didn't fight her as she held him to her and touched his lips with her tongue.
Fear had driven away the embarrassment she felt at seducing him, but it hadn't erased the desire he called from her. When he took charge of the kiss, she softened for him and allowed him to vent his fury into passion.
It was the Guardian who gentled the kiss again and shifted his weight away from her. He rubbed his face against hers, like a cat marking his territory, and then pulled away despite the tension that shook his body.
"Benroln has Mother and Lehr?" he asked hoarsely.
She had to clear her throat before she could say anything. "Yes," she said.
She averted her face, knowing her cheeks were red, so she didn't have a chance to move away before he touched her again. He pulled her against him, and set his chin on top of her head.
"We'll go find them," he said. Then he must have noticed Isfain, because he stiffened.
"What have you done to that one?" he growled.
She used the excuse of looking at Isfain to step out of Jes's arms. "Not as much as I'd have liked to," she said. "Benroln was young when he stepped up to the leadership - if I understand the history that led to this stupidity. But you," she tapped Isfain's nose reprovingly, "you knew better. He was your sister's son and you taught him poorly."
"Release him," said the Guardian.
She cocked her head at him warily. "Why?"
When he growled at her, she found herself smiling despite the way the skin on her back flinched. "I think we'd better just leave him as he is until we find Lehr and your mother, don't you?"
"Soft-hearted," he said.
"Better than soft-headed," she replied. "Should we go after Lehr and Seraph?"
He stepped around her and held open the tent flap. "I'd rather eat someone," he said - she thought it was for Isfain's benefit, but she wasn't quite sure. "But we'll head out looking for Mother first. Is Gura here?"
"Seraph told him to guard the tent," she said.
As she ducked through the flap he put his lips near her ear and said, "Don't feel guilty."
She stopped so abruptly that the top of her head collided with his jaw hard enough that she heard his teeth click.
"Why should I feel guilty for kissing a handsome young boy?" she said sarcastically, without lowering her tone at all.
To her amazement he grinned at her. Guardians didn't grin. They smiled with pleasure while they choked the life out of some poor fool who crossed them. They bared their teeth. They didn't grin.
"I don't know. We both enjoyed it very much, Jes and I," his grin widened. "And we'd like to do it again as soon as possible."
"Here you are," said a young man in rich clothing who awaited them in a small clearing set in the side of a hill and overlooking a twenty-acre field with a tidy cottage at the far end. "I thought you might not make it."
Benroln smiled congenially. "I don't break contracts, sir."
"And besides," said the young man, "you knew there was more gold where you got the first, eh?"
He looked too young to have been a merchant for long, thought Seraph, then she reconsidered. There was a softness in his face that made him look exceedingly young, but his eyes were sharp and old.
I'll bet that he uses that young face of his, Seraph thought as she revised her estimate of his age upward by ten years.
"Of course, sir," said Benroln after he laughed politely at the merchant's comment. "This is the woman who will set the spell."
"And this is the farm right here," replied the merchant in a light, pleasant voice. "I want it cursed - you understand. Paid good money for a mage to curse it last year - but Asherstal still got a harvest out. I told that sorcerer I wanted nothing to grow on these fields, not even a weed. I want the other farmers to avoid Asherstal for fear whatever befell him will happen to them. I want him shamed. You'd better do the job or maybe some ill might befall you, eh? Like happened to that mage I hired last year."
Benroln looked taken aback, and Seraph wondered if he'd believed that sweet, innocent air the merchant exuded.
"Your mage's curse is still here," she murmured. "Perhaps you had him killed too soon. I'll have to take it off before I can work."
"I don't tell a tanner how to do his job," said the merchant. "I just pay him for good work." He made an odd motion with his hand that might have been accidental - but Tier had taught the boys the signs soldiers used. It had the look of one of those.
Lehr had caught it, too, she thought. He faded back silently into the night. Neither the merchant nor Benroln seemed to notice - she doubted the merchant had ever seen him to begin with.
"I'll have to go down to the edge of the field," Seraph said.
"Fine, fine," he agreed. "It's dark enough that they won't see you. We can wait in the trees that border the field."
He led the way down. If Benroln was worried by anything, Seraph couldn't tell - but she thought not. If he'd been properly worried about the merchant, he wouldn't have left Isfain and Kors to tend Jes and Hennea. More fool he, to trust a man who'd curse another man's living.
She suspected that the hidden men were to come out when she finished to make certain neither Benroln nor she told anyone that he'd paid to have this poor farmer's fields cursed.
Lehr wondered if his mother had caught the signal the merchant had sent. There were men out here somewhere, men waiting to kill Benroln and his mother when the merchant decided he was finished with them. Personally, Lehr wasn't worried about Benroln one way or the other, but his mother was another matter entirely.
Lehr backtracked the merchant until he found a place where the man had waited with four others. Enough men to account for a couple of Travelers as long as they took them by surprise. Each had taken a different path.
They left no tracks that he could see, because the forest was inky-dark; not even the starlight illuminated the ground under the trees. But he knew they had been there because he could smell them.
He shuddered. What was he that he could scent a man like a dog? He drew his knife and picked a trail to follow.
When they came to the edge of the woods, the merchant motioned Seraph on. He and Benroln settled in to wait under the cover of the trees while she worked her magic.
She sat down on the ground at the edge of the field, just outside of the area of planting. She could see the weaving of magic through the soil. The mage this merchant had hired had done well; it was going to take her a long time to clean the field. Time for Lehr to find the merchant's men. Time for Jes to be lost to the effects of the foundrael.
She began plucking the threads of the dead mage's spell without further ado. As she did so, the familiarity of what she was doing settled around her with a feeling of rightness: this is what she had been born to do.
After a while the merchant became impatient. "I don't see anything. I don't pay good money for nothing - and I don't put up with people who try to steal from me."
"Tell him I can't work unless he's quiet," said Seraph serenely, knowing that the calmer she was the worse the merchant would take it. His sort always liked to see people cringe in fear of him. She could have given him a light show, but the people her magic told her were sleeping in the cottage might be awakened. She didn't want them coming out to investigate with the merchant's armsmen lurking about - the wrong people might be killed.
"Come away," Benroln said to the merchant with an air of determinedly cheerful deplomacy. "This will take a while. I brought a pair of dice with me. We can pass the time while Seraph works."
Just as well he'd intervened before she'd pushed the merchant too far, she thought and turned her attention back to the field. Lehr needed all the time she could buy him.
Now why didn't you work? she asked as she pulled the cursing magic away from stalks of wheat only half the size they should be this time of year. Nonetheless, with the strength of the spell she was unravelling, this field shouldn't have grown anything more than a sprig of cheatgrass.
Night fell, but she didn't pay any attention - what she was looking at didn't require light for her to see. Finally, she detached the last of the spelling and, unanchored, the weave fell apart and lost its form.
The magic the wizard had imbued in his casting drifted off when the spell lost its power. It didn't go far before it was caught firmly, and pulled back into the earth to enrich the soil. That was when Seraph realized how it was that the farmer had managed to grow wheat in this field.
There were other creatures that used magic besides the shadow beasts who lived in the Ragged Mountains. Most of them had died fighting at Shadow's Fall. But some of them escaped.
This one hadn't been strong enough to remove the spell, but it had done a great deal to mitigate the effects. Likely whatever it was, it had felt her meddling and was watching from nearby.
"Mmm," she murmured, smiling in pleasure as she leaned forward and pressed her hands onto the field, sinking her hands into the soft ground where the magic held in the grains of dirt made her fingers tingle.
Seraph sent out a drift of Seeking magic again, this time looking for a creature not human. She found something almost immediately, but it was different than she expected: darkness but not shadow, somehow more natural, more elemental than the woods around her, something frightening. It could only be Jes.
The time had come whether Lehr was finished or not. She set the mystery of the farm's protector aside and began her show.
She stood up and held both arms out theatrically, calling out in the Old Tongue. They weren't words of power - she didn't need them for this. She didn't know many words of the Old Tongue, but she was willing to bet that Benroln knew even less.
Theatrics, her father would have scolded her, but her grandfather would have understood. Some people wouldn't believe in magic until it came with light and sounds.
The merchant himself had given her the idea for this, and the magic embedded in the soil gave her the power. She called light filaments to sparkle and grow like cobwebs on the wheat, dancing from stalk to stalk until the whole field glittered in light that shifted rapidly through the shades of the rainbow in waves. It was a pretty effect, she thought, though it was merely light.
But there wouldn't be a solsenti alive who would turn their heads from the field to look behind them when Seraph's children approached. Benroln and the merchant stepped out of the trees, but a flicker of magic held them where they were.
Now to leave the merchant in no doubt of what his gold had purchased for him. This was more difficult and she would never have even attempted it if it hadn't been for that dark, tingling soil that ached to aid the growth of the plants rooted in it.
Slowly she raised her arms together as she pushed her magic into plants. Grow, she urged them, grow and be strong.
Stalks thickened slowly and stretched up...
A defter hand than hers touched them and straightened and strengthened; balancing root, stalk, and bearding head in a way that Seraph would not have, though she knew, from the rightness of the path of magic, that this was how plants ought to grow.
Since her magic was not needed, she glanced toward the source of the magework and saw it, sitting near a fencepost. It wasn't much bigger than a cat, a small, mossy creature with rounded, droopy ears and large eyes that gleamed with power. Its coloring matched the earth and wood so closely that she doubted that she would have seen it if the field hadn't been thrumming with its power.
"Earthkit," she said softly to herself. "This farmer must keep to the old ways."
"When he had naught but old bread and milk for his own children he didn't forget me," agreed a voice she felt as much as heard. "Such acts are to be rewarded."
"Indeed," agreed Seraph. Since she wasn't doing anything else, she added a crackle to the lights so that the merchant and Benroln wouldn't hear her talking to the creature. "I would not have been able to heal this so well without you."
"Nor could I break that other spelling," said the earthkit in its rusty voice. "But I am done now." The magic ceased abruptly and it left in a scuttling run that her eyes could not quite follow.
The wheat swayed under Seraph's lights, ready to harvest now - at least two months early. She lowered her arms and allowed the glitter and noise to die away slowly.
"I won't do the work of petty criminals," she said clearly.
"Raven," spat Benroln. "Fine. See what happens to your children now. And as for this," he waved a hand at the field, "You may be Raven, but I am Cormorant."
Electricity began gathering in the air.
Stupid, stupid, arrogant Raven, Seraph thought, bitterly ashamed. A storm with the heavy wheat heads atop slender, drying stalks would be disastrous.
If she'd just left the field alone once she'd broken the curse, the earthkit would have seen to it that the wheat grew normally. She knew what Benroln was, and being a farmer's wife she should have remembered what disasters the weather can bring.
"Benroln," she said harshly, "you are a fool. This man has assassins in the woods - do you think they lurk there to watch the magic?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," said the merchant.
Benroln stopped his casting and looked at the other man.
"Why do you think that a man like this would come here without guards?" said Seraph. "There has always been a problem doing the work of solsenti who are willing to hire Travelers to make evil upon others of their kind."
"What do you suggest?" Benroln said bitterly. "My people will starve. I tried it your way. We were driven from one place to another, sometimes by people who feared what we might do and sometimes by people because we wouldn't do as they asked. I've had four - four - mermori come to me. Four more clans dead and gone."
"Do not air our quarrels before solsenti," she said sharply.
Benroln glanced at the merchant and bit his lip.
"Lehr took care of three of the men who were watching," said Hennea, coming out of the woods with Gura at her side. "Jes has the other one immobilized."
"So what do we do with him?" Benroln asked.
Jes appeared and grabbed the merchant's hand.
"You don't want to draw that knife," Jes said quietly. "My brother's over there with one of your men's bows. No use anyone else dying tonight."
The merchant all but collapsed at Jes's touch, and Seraph's oldest son relieved him of several throwing knives.
"Asherstal," said Seraph, snapping her fingers. "The owner of this field. He has managed to survive this long; I suspect he can handle this one if we deliver him. Hennea, Jes, could you escort him there?" She turned to Benroln and said, "I need you to call a meeting of your people tonight. I'd like to tell you some things that you need to know."
If she could persuade the entire clan to follow her to Taela, she'd have the clan's healer for her husband when she found him. She just wished she were as good at persuading people as Tier was.
Benroln didn't wait for her, but stomped off, angry at her, at the merchant, and at a responsibility he didn't know how to fulfill.
When Benroln was gone, Jes said, "He bears no open wounds, Mother, but Lehr is hurt."
Seraph nodded. "Take this one to the farmhouse and don't get anyone hurt in the process, and I'll do my best for Lehr."
She waited until Jes and Hennea were halfway to the cabin, but before she called out, Lehr came. It was too dark to see him well, but she could smell the blood on him.
"Thank you," she said. "If you had not been here tonight, Benroln and I would doubtless have been dead."
"There are three men dead instead," he said. "Jes tied the fourth one up before I got to him."
"They were men who were willing to kill for no cause but gold," said Seraph. Words were not her strength, but for Lehr she searched for the right ones. "They have doubtless killed others on the merchant's orders. Now they will not kill anyone again."
"When I killed them," whispered Lehr, coming toward her, "it was so easy. Easier than hunting deer. What am I, Mother?"
"This is what it means to be an Order-Bearer," she told him. "None of the Orders are easy. You are Hunter, and among the tasks of the Hunter is the bringing of death."
She opened her arms, and, when he dropped to his knees in front of her, she pulled him close. He buried his face in the crook of her neck.
"I don't like it," he said.
"Shh," she held him and rocked lightly back and forth, as she had when he'd been a child. "Shh."
"Someone's waiting in front of our tent," said Jes just as Gura gave a happy bark and ran forward with his tail wagging.
"So," said Brewydd from a bench someone must have carried over for her. "You stopped Benroln from his folly. That's more than I've managed to do." Gura sat beside her and put his big black muzzle on her knee and heaved a contented sigh.
"Hardly," said Seraph. "I just pointed out that the merchant he chose to do business with was a thief and a killer - and that any other solsenti he'd find to pay for the same sort of favor will probably be equally bad."
The old woman cackled, "I never thought of that."
"It won't stop him," said Seraph. "He's obviously done similar things before; he'll do them again."
"Most of them weren't this bad," said Brewydd. "Though making certain that a village was dry a month or more in high summer, then forcing them to pay him to bring the rain is no noble deed."
"No," agreed Hennea dryly.
"Talk to him at this meeting tonight," Brewydd told Seraph. "Make him understand what he does is folly."
"What good will talking do?" asked Lehr. "Haven't you told him what he's been doing is wrong? Why would he listen to Mother when he won't listen to you?"
"Hah!" exclaimed Brewydd. "A man would rather listen to a beautiful woman than a wrinkled old crone. You, boy," she said pointing at Lehr. "You can help an old woman to her home."
Lehr took a deep breath, tightened his jaw, and nodded his head. When he took her arm, Brewydd patted his biceps lightly before using him to lever herself up. "Your mother teaches you well, boy. It is good when a youngling is kind to old women." She winked at Seraph and continued to mutter at Lehr as he led her back to her wagon.
"Right," said Seraph, hoping Brewydd could do better for Lehr than she'd managed. "Let's go find Benroln."
"Seraph," said Hennea, "if you go and start attacking Benroln for what he's done, you'll make Lehr happy and we'll all go our separate ways tomorrow. Benroln will still take gold from the next solsenti who wants to pay to have his neighbor's fields destroyed, and you'll have the satisfaction of telling them what you think of them."
"You have another suggestion?" said Seraph.
"The Secret Path is very powerful," said Hennea. "They claim that they run the Empire, and that might very well be true. Having more people to call on for help could be very useful."
"I've thought of that," said Seraph. "But - Hennea, I am not a Bard. Yelling I can do, but persuasion is another matter entirely. Would you try?"
She shook her head. "To Benroln and his people, you are our leader. To have me speak to them would be an insult. You can do this. Just remember that Benroln is frustrated because there's nothing he can do to keep his people safe. Give him something to do other than rob the solsenti of their gold, some way to strike back, and he'll forget about the games."
Isfain was angry with Hennea, Seraph observed as she sipped her hot tea. But Hennea had told her the state she'd found Jes in, and Seraph didn't mind seeing him grit his teeth when Hennea got too close. What chance had given Hennea the knowledge of loosing the foundrael, Seraph didn't know, but she was grateful for it all the same.
Hennea had certainly impressed a few people with her freeing of Jes. The whole Rongier clan, at least those present at the small gathering in front of Benroln's tent, were treating Hennea as if she'd grown a third head.
Or maybe Hennea was just sitting too close to Jes.
Jes had no intention of forgiving anyone for imprisoning him. He lurked in a wolfish form only half-revealed by the flickering light of the bonfire. It might have been easier if he'd chosen to be wolf in whole, but the wolf's muzzle and eyes in an otherwise human body was particularly disturbing. Low growls told everyone that he was unhappy with them all. Seraph rather thought the shape was an illusion, but it was difficult to tell.
Brewydd had brought Lehr with her. He looked tired, but the sickness had faded from his eyes. When the old woman griped at him and ordered him to move her camp chair three times before she sat in it, he actually grinned.
Benroln came out of his tent at last, and looked around to see that everyone was there. He sat down directly opposite Seraph and nodded his head at her: so the meeting would begin with her comments.
Unhappy people, all, she thought, glancing around at the faces of the clan.
"We could spend the night throwing accusations and debating ancient history," said Seraph. "If you were not honest with what you wanted of us, well then, we were not entirely honest either."
"I'd like to rage at you, and tell you how wrong what you've been doing is, but you already know what I think." She took a deep breath. "So I'm going to tell you the things that we didn't tell you when you invited us to journey with you to Taela. It will take a while, and I am no Bard. I ask for your patience just the same."
"I am Seraph, Raven of Isolda the Silent and wife to Tieragan of Redern, Owl in his own right, though he has not a drop of Traveler blood..."
By the time she brought them into the present she was hoarse. Benroln refilled her cup and urged it upon her solicitously - as if they had not just fought a battle over a farmer's field.
As clan leader, it was his place to respond, so everyone sat silently while he considered her story.
"This Path," he said, "they have been taking our people for years and stealing their Orders?"
Seraph nodded.
"You have some of the stones?" asked Brewydd.
Seraph had thought the old Healer was asleep.
"Yes."
"I'd like to see them," Brewydd murmured. "Bring them here when we are done and we'll sit in the Librarian's home, you and I, Hennea and Benroln, and see just what evil the solsenti have wrought."
"All right," Seraph said and then changed the subject. "Tomorrow, my family and I will continue on to Taela where my husband is being kept."
"You say your husband is Ordered," said Isfain. "But he is a solsenti?"
"That's right."
"Could this Secret Path you told us about be the reason that the solsenti laws have become so stringent against us?" asked Kors.
Seraph thought that they could look to themselves and to other clans who had gone after gold rather than fighting evil for the cause of the antipathy solsenti had toward Travelers, but she wasn't such a fool as to say so.
Benroln, unaware of Seraph's thoughts, nodded intently. "It could be. If what we have heard tonight is true, this Path could be very powerful." He nodded his head once more. "Then this is what we will do. Isfain, send out messages to the other clans we know of and warn them of this Path and their methods. See to it that they in turn pass the message on." He waited until Isfain nodded. "Tomorrow we also strike out at speed for Taela."
He turned to Seraph. "There are things that we can do to help. We have friends in Taela."
Seraph looked at his eager face. "I would be very grateful for any help you can give," she said.
Seraph was exhausted, but she found herself as unable to say no to the old Healer as everyone else was. Besides, she wanted to know what the Healer could tell her about the rings. So it was that she found herself inside the house of Rongier the Librarian with Hennea, Benroln, and Brewydd.
Rongier's home had been larger and more prosperous than Isolda's. His library had a table large enough to seat eight or ten people.
Seraph took the seat next to Brewydd and dumped the bag of rings on the table.
Brewydd hesitated and lightly fingered each ring before settling on an old ring set with a stone of rose quartz.
"Well," she murmured, "how did they do that then? You told me that they took the Orders and bound them to a ring."
"Right," said Seraph. "That's what Hennea said, and that's what seems to have happened."
"Indeed." Brewydd put the ring down and pushed it away from her. Her hand was shaking a little. "So that's one of the reasons," she murmured.
"Reasons for what, Brewydd?" asked Benroln. He'd made no move to look closer at the rings.
"There were only ever so many Orders," she said. "I don't know the numbers, I'm not certain where to find an exact count of most of them - but there were only ever ten healers. One would die and another would be born. But now there are only six." She pointed at the ring she'd been handling. "That one is one of the missing."
"Do you mean to say that the Orders are... like a..." Seraph searched for a proper comparison.
"Like a suit of armor," said Brewydd. "One that is fitted at birth and stays with you, grows to be a part of you until it is like your skin. When you die, the skin sloughs off and cleanses itself of everything that was yours - your scent, your shape, the sound of your voice. Then, once more only a suit of armor, it goes off and seeks the next person to fit itself to."
She folded her hands and rested her chin on them. "The Orders don't go to just anyone." She nodded her head toward Seraph. "You would have been a mage even if you hadn't been Raven. Your husband would still have sung. Benroln would have been one of those people who always seems to know when a bad storm is coming in. The Orders go where they will be welcomed."
"So when they made these stones," said Benroln somberly, "each ring was another Traveler born without an Order."
Brewydd nodded her head. She looked at Hennea. "You said that the wizards of the Path, these Masters, find that they cannot use some of these. I believe that they took the Order too soon, that there are bits of personality still clinging to the stones. The only time I've ever seen something similar is when I had to deal with a Raven's Memory."
"A Raven's Memory?" asked Benroln.
"A Raven's Memory," said Brewydd, "happens only when a Raven is murdered. A Raven can take the power that always comes with death and a part of himself to the Order and bind the result to a false life until it carries out vengeance against his murderer."
"But it's not only the Raven stones that..." Seraph's voice trailed off because she wasn't certain how to explain it.
"No." Brewydd sorted out a half dozen rings. "Here is the Lark, a couple of Ravens, a Hunter and Bard, these all contain part of their last Order-Bearer. They're bound, tied to the stones so they can't act like Raven Memories - but I bet the wizards who tried to wear them got a rude surprise."
"Do you know what to do with them?" asked Hennea.
"Not yet," said Brewydd. "Do you mind if I keep these?" She indicated the jewelry.
"No," said Seraph. "If you can figure out what to do with them, how to free the Orders, it is more than Hennea and I have managed."
Brewydd nodded and collected the rings into Seraph's bag. "Tell that boy of yours to come to my wagon tomorrow when we stop to camp," she said.
"Lehr?" asked Seraph cautiously.
Brewydd nodded. "I know a few odd things about Hunters he might be interested in." She got to her feet. "I know a lot more than I let on," she said. "But I only share with those I like. Your boy was exhausted and heartsick, not to mention tired of taking orders and angry with the whole of my clan - yet he still was courteous and gentle. I like him." She glared at Benroln.
He got up off the chair with a crack of laughter. "I love you, old woman." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I'm going to get some sleep before I fall over. You'll want to keep the mermora until you've solved this puzzle with the rings, and you are welcome to it, Brewydd. Good night."
Brewydd turned to Seraph. "I'm an honest woman, so I'll tell you that I'm not used to learning wisdom from those younger than I. I thought that I had to convince him that what he was doing to earn gold was wrong. I never considered trying to find something else for him to do instead. Thank you."
Seraph shook her head. "I'm afraid you have Hennea to thank for that."
Hennea smiled and got up. "You're welcome to any bits of wisdom I pick up. Now, I'm with Benroln; it's time to sleep. Can I escort you to your wagon?"
Brewydd laughed and winked at Seraph. "I'll say yes, only because that handsome young Guardian who's been waiting outside will come, too."
Seraph laughed, yawned, and left for their tent.
"Seraph, wake up," Hennea's voice was soft and disappeared into the dream.
"Mother," murmured Jes.
At the sound, Seraph sat up and opened her eyes almost in the same motion. "Jes, are you all right?"
He smiled his sweet smile. "Fine, Mother, but you're going to wake the camp."
Seraph yawned and tried to find the reason they'd woken her up in what Jes had just said. It was still dark out and everyone except her was lying down. Hennea had a gentle grip on Seraph's arm.
"You were having nightmares," said Lehr, rolling on his side so he could see her more easily.
When he said it, she remembered. Tier had been sitting on a throne of oak, ash, and rowan while a spell was worked around him. He'd been playing one of the songs he played often at the tavern, though she couldn't remember which one it was. She'd run to him, knelt at his feet, and set her head in his lap as she had sometimes when the nightmares had been so bad after her brother had died. But there had been something wrong. He'd kept playing, ignoring her entirely. Finally she'd reached up to touch the skin of his arm and screamed. His flesh had been warm, she could feel blood pulse under her fingertips, but she knew that he was dead.
Nervously she ran her fingers in her hair. "Thank you for waking me," she said, lying down again.
"What did you dream of?" asked Hennea.
"I don't remember," Seraph lied. She had no talent for foreseeing, she reminded herself firmly. It had only been a dream.
She lay back and stared at the top of the tent. She knew that Jes and Lehr assumed they'd find Tier hale and whole and the only problem would be getting him out, but Seraph had too much experience to believe in happy endings.
He might be dead.
She'd never told Tier that she loved him. Never once.
She had done her best to turn herself into a good wife, tried to become the person he needed as helpmeet. She knew he'd assume that she'd never told him that she loved him because she didn't.
He was wrong.
Tier felt guilty for so much: that she'd been forced to marry him, that she'd been so young. Their marriage had freed him from the burden of taking over the family bakery and he felt guilty about that, too. He'd gained his freedom and she'd lost hers, lost her chance to rejoin her people. If she'd ever told him that she loved him, he'd have told her that he loved her, too.
He'd have lied for her.
Tier was the most truthful person she knew. He'd have lied to her out of guilt, and she couldn't abide that, so she'd never told him.
Dry-eyed, she stared at the tent ceiling and hoped that she'd get the chance to hear him lie to her.
