Firebrand

  “And so you say Mornhavon has reawakened,” Yannuf said.

  She was surprised to realize it had grown full dark. The stars were slightly different here, as if the valley wasn’t just hidden, but slightly askew from her own world.

  “Yes,” she replied, and she and Enver described Mornhavon’s return and the rise of Second Empire.

  “I assume,” Yannuf said, “it is why you have come here seeking us. You remembered your old allies.”

  “An image of the p’ehdrose was recently found in a panel of stained glass depicting the Long War.”

  Yannuf turned his gaze to Enver. “You mean the Eletians did not tell you?”

  “Our people knew yours had gone into seclusion,” Enver replied. “We did not know if you persisted.”

  Yannuf squinted his eyes as if he didn’t quite believe him. “Your people should have remembered, even if hers didn’t, not to break the oath. Especially your king.”

  Karigan saw that Enver looked disturbed. Had he even known? It would be like the Eletians to send them into a situation even if they knew better.

  “King Santanara Sleeps,” was all Enver would say.

  One of the p’ehdrose whispered into Yannuf’s ear. Now he turned his sharp gaze back on Karigan. “How is it you know of Ghallos?”

  There was some pushing and shoving among the onlookers as a p’ehdrose burst to the front. Karigan recognized him immediately.

  “Yes,” Ghallos said, “I would like to know, too.”

  GHALLOS

  Karigan stared wide-eyed at Ghallos. He was large even among the p’ehdrose, and so alive. She’d last seen him as a stuffed specimen on display in a museum in the future. His moose half had been well-preserved, but his human half had been poorly executed. She shuddered as she remembered someone telling her how difficult it was to preserve human flesh. His skin had appeared old parchment, puckered and yellowed, his hair and beard like dry straw. The living Ghallos radiated energy and looked nothing like old parchment.

  “Well?” he demanded. “How do you know my name?”

  “It’s, uh, a long story,” Karigan said. “My pardon, Chief Ghallos.” She bowed.

  There were murmurs among the assembled, and when Karigan looked up, the p’ehdrose was staring hard at her.

  “I am not the chief,” he said. “Yannuf is, and any of my kind would be punished severely for suggesting otherwise.”

  “Again, my pardon.” The sudden appearance of Ghallos had shaken her, and she should have guessed that some of the things she had understood in the future to be true might not have yet come to pass in the present.

  “I have been listening in the back, Uncle,” Ghallos told Yannuf. “I think these creatures should be put back in their pen while we have a talk.”

  “Agreed,” Yannuf said.

  Before Karigan could protest, she was picked up beneath her arms again by a pair of p’ehdrose and carried back into the hut, where they dropped her. They brought Enver right behind her, but he landed neatly on his feet.

  Karigan crawled over to a mat and sat. “Damnation.”

  “Did they hurt you?” Enver asked.

  “No worse than last time.”

  “I should look at your back.”

  “No.” She did not want to be caught unprepared should the p’ehdrose return for them. Besides, what could Enver do? The p’ehdrose had all of his belongings, including his herbs and medicaments. She’d also grown reluctant to let him care for her on so intimate a level. She’d the feeling of late that his desire to help came less from a place of healing than his own personal need to be near her. “This is not going the way I hoped.”

  “They are a primitive race, Galadheon. They always have been.”

  “Did you know about the oath?” she asked.

  Enver sat fluidly onto his own mat. “Believe me, I did not. When I was given my orders, that information was left out.”

  Eletians. Prince Jametari apparently thought them expendable. “They may kill us, you know. They will not want the secret of their valley to get out.”

  “I am sorry, Galadheon. I did not know of this oath.”

  She sighed. “It’s not your fault. It doesn’t help that I’m not much of a diplomat.” She wondered if there was any way to evoke the friendship of Lil Ambrioth. During the Long War, a p’ehdrose named Maultin had given the First Rider a horn of the komara beast. It was used to summon Green Riders and was supposed to be passed down from one Rider captain to the next. Karigan hadn’t thought to bring it along as a reminder of old friendships because she was not captain, and now she silently berated herself.

  She sat for a while, then got up and paced, and then sat again, while Enver remained in his meditative posture.

  “What will you do,” he asked suddenly, “when you return home?”

  Karigan looked at him in surprise. “Home? That’s if we aren’t killed . . .”

  “I prefer to believe all will be well.”

  As if to counter his words, voices were raised in argument outside.

  “If I get home, I guess it will be a return to the usual.” She paused, looked down at her hands. “Of course, I will have to get my back working properly first.”

  “You will practice listening to the world.” It was not a question.

  “I—yes, I guess I will.”

  “What else, Galadheon?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it. It depends on what duties I’m assigned.”

  “Not just your duties,” Enver said. “What else?”

  What was he driving at? “I don’t know.”

  “What of your king?”

  “What about my king?” she asked in a sharp voice. Unconsciously, she toyed with the bracelet he had made her.

  “You will return to him.”

  “Yes, of course I will. I am his messenger. I will return to resume my duty in Sacor City.”

  “There is more to it than that,” he said, “between you.” He actually sounded angry.

  She stood, not pleased with the direction in which this conversation was going. She paced some more, and then turned on him. “It is nothing. It can be nothing. It never could have been anything.”

  “Are you just saying that to appease me, or do you believe it?”

  “Why are you bringing this up?”

  “I’ve an interest,” he said.

  She stared at him, and he stared right back. His eyes took her in hungrily and there was no question of his “interest.” She stepped back, then shook herself and started pacing again. When she paused once more, she said in a low, intense voice, “I do not want to talk about this again, not about the king or—or your interest.” She turned away, but not before she saw the stung expression on his face.

  • • •

  It might have been a couple hours before the p’ehdrose returned for them. This time, before Karigan could be carried out, she shouted at her escorts, “I can walk! Leave your hands off me.” She was far beyond being diplomatic at this point, especially after having to sit in such pained silence with Enver for so long.

  Ghallos and Yannuf stood foremost at the bonfire, waiting for them. Karigan and Enver were shoved in front of them as if in judgment.

  “We have discussed long and hard what to do with a pair of oathbreakers,” Yannuf said. “Oathbreakers of peoples with whom we once had friendly ties.”

  “We hear your plea for help,” Ghallos said, “as an old dark revives, but though we are sympathetic, it is not our world and not our care. We will go on as we always have.”

  Karigan was about to protest when Yannuf said, “No interruptions. Your lives have been very much at stake here. There will be justice.”

  She balled her fists. She wouldn’t get far against these brawny, armed p’ehdrose, but she would not die without a fight.

  “Because of
the friendship between our peoples of long ago,” Yannuf continued, “because of the high regard one of our greatest heroes, Maultin, held for the First Rider and King Santanara, we will spare your lives.”

  She exhaled in relief and relaxed her tense muscles. Her back was killing her.

  “However, we cannot allow you to leave our valley ever again.”

  “What?” Karigan cried. “Why not?”

  “You have seen too much. You know our secret. We cannot have outsiders entering our valley.”

  “You don’t think our people won’t come looking for us?” she demanded.

  “If they do, they won’t find you,” Ghallos said, his arms crossed upon his chest.

  “We found you.”

  “The entrance to our valley will be changed,” Yannuf said.

  She looked from one to the other, from youngster to elder. “You expect me to accept this?”

  “We offer you our hospitality,” Yannuf replied. “If you choose not to accept, you will be dealt with accordingly.”

  “Killed.”

  Yannuf nodded.

  Karigan began to tremble with rage. She stepped boldly up to the two p’ehdrose. Enver tried grabbing her arm, but she shook him off.

  He whispered an urgent, “Galadheon, they are already angry!”

  She ignored him. “You think changing the entry to your valley will keep searchers out?” she demanded of Yannuf and Ghallos. “You think the rising darkness will not affect you? That the tainted wild magic of Blackveil will not reach you? You think Mornhavon won’t remember you? Then I suggest you think again.”

  “I’ll not hear this—” Yannuf began.

  “You ignore me at your peril!” she shouted. “You look to the past, but what about the future? Let me show you the future.” And she ripped off her eyepatch and stared up at Ghallos. There were intakes of breath from those who caught the gleam of her mirror eye.

  “Mirare,” one or two whispered.

  Ghallos bent toward her as though her gaze drew him inescapably in. She saw nothing out of her mirror eye. Until she did. Through it she viewed the universe with myriad stars and the interweaving of threads, past, present, future. Some threads ran their course unbroken, twined with others, but moving so rapidly like a comet that she could make no sense of it. Others frayed and threatened to snap. And then there were those that had snapped, the severed ends dangling, wispy, reaching out to rejoin, but it was too late for them. Of one of those she got an impression of Nyssa on one end, and on the other, of a man named Starling, one who would have been born in the future had Nyssa not been killed.

  Ghallos seemed to stare into her eye for what felt like forever—she’d never revealed it for so long before. Daggerlike pain stabbed her eye, and she fell back with a cry into Enver’s arms.

  “It is all right, Galadheon,” he whispered in soothing tones. “I have you. It is all right.” He cradled her while she caught her breath, while her heartbeat steadied, while she tried to make sense of who she was, where she was.

  When she came to her senses and her vision cleared, she saw that Ghallos was pale. He knelt down before her, his legs shaking. “You are Mirare,” he said.

  “So I have been told.”

  He shivered. “One such as you has not been seen among our people since Maultin’s time. What I saw in your eye . . . You were telling us truth. We are not safe, not even here. Nothing we could do would guarantee our safety.” He stood once more, looked at his uncle and all the p’ehdrose assembled. “If we do nothing, we will be hunted down and slaughtered, every last one of us, until we are no more. Mornhavon the Black is rising, and he has not forgotten us. Now is not the time to hide, but to strike before we are destroyed.”

  Voices rose and raged around him in the guttural language of the p’ehdrose. Karigan remained reclined in Enver’s arms, feeling rather muddled. One voice stood out from the others—Ghallos. He paced among the other p’ehdrose, his tone by turns cajoling, argumentative, authoritative. She did not know how much time elapsed for she seemed to fall in and out of awareness, the fire flickering against the faces of the p’ehdrose, dreamlike. Enver carried her back to their hut.

  “Ghallos looked in your eye a very long time,” he told her. “The effect on him was profound.”

  “Have they decided?” Karigan asked.

  In the hut, Enver gently set her down and wrapped her in his cloak. “No, Galadheon. I think they will be arguing much of the night.”

  As she drifted off, she was vaguely aware of him seated so close beside her that they touched. She thought, perhaps, she should move away, but she hadn’t the energy, and the dark of sleep descended.

  • • •

  In the morning she awoke with a headache. One of the p’ehdrose brought them a tray of food and drink. There was more of the cold-smoked salmon, cheese, and a stout bread dripping with honey.

  Karigan tried to shake off the grogginess and sipped tea. “Have they come to a decision?” she asked Enver. She peered through the doorway and found the outer world quiet but for the morning song of birds and a few p’ehdrose moving about, attending to chores. The bonfire from the previous night was nothing but ashes.

  “I believe they have,” Enver said, “but I am not sure which way it has gone.”

  Breakfast was long finished, and Karigan pacing with anxiety and impatience, by the time Yannuf came to see them, his expression grim.

  “Tell your kings,” he said, “that the p’ehdrose will honor its alliance of old. We will once more go to war.”

  While Karigan no longer saw the heavens with its many threads, she felt one snap, and decisively. Her body actually jerked with it and Enver hastened to steady her. She had done it. She had turned the p’ehdrose to their cause. And now she could return home to whatever uncertainty awaited her there.

  SOLITUDE

  Ghallos led Karigan and Enver from the valley. Before they parted, Ghallos told Karigan, “I keep expecting you to, I don’t know, change into a bird or something incredible. You are Mirare, but all I see is an ordinary woman, or, at least, as ordinary as one with only two legs can be.”

  She smiled, pleased, for once, to be considered ordinary.

  He then took her aside and bent down to whisper, “Just a warning about Eletians. You may think you know them, but they are not always what they seem. This one smells of . . . danger.”

  She glanced at Enver, who watched them without expression. She did not doubt his keen hearing had picked up all that Ghallos said.

  “In what way?”

  “I am not sure,” Ghallos replied, “but be wary, and keep in mind that though they may have only two legs like you, they are very different creatures and, in some ways, much less civilized.”

  Karigan smiled weakly and bade Ghallos farewell. Because he helped show them the path out of the valley, the use of her ability was not required. She had considered asking him about Odessa before they left, the p’ehdrose who, she’d learned in the future time, was his mate, but she decided that if he wasn’t yet chieftain of the p’ehdrose as she had believed, perhaps Odessa was not yet his mate, and she did not wish to disrupt the natural course of whatever might lie between the two.

  • • •

  It was a pleasant day for a ride in the sunshine, and Karigan was feeling much better thanks to the deep sleep she’d gotten after the long exposure of her mirror eye the previous night. She had succeeded in reforging the alliance with the p’ehdrose, even if by unconventional means, and had in her satchel a document of agreement marked by Yannuf’s bloody thumbprint to represent his signature. She and Enver had not been killed or forced to live in the valley. She considered the endeavor to have been a great success.

  As they rode, however, she was already thinking about the journey home, about what Nyssa had done to her confidence, and about Enver. She gave him a quick sideways glance. His gaze was fix
ed on the terrain ahead, but too often she’d felt that gaze fixed on her, and that his regard of her had intensified. She could not pinpoint exactly when it had happened, but he seemed to have need of being near her constantly, always having to have some physical contact with her. No matter how harmless the touch, it had begun to feel proprietary, as though he held some claim to her that others were not permitted. It had gotten to the point where, not only had she declined having him tend her wounds, but she had refused to let him help her mount Condor. Then there was the exchange they had had in the hut of the p’ehdrose when he’d expressed his “interest” and had seemed jealous of Zachary. It all made her feel uneasy and she kept what distance she could.

  When they halted for a break, she dismounted and paced to relax her back, and she came to a decision. When she saw Enver following her every move, she knew it was the right one.

  “Enver,” she said, “back in the valley you asked me what I was going to do when I returned home.”

  “I did.”

  “Well, what are you going to do?”

  “I will ride with you to Sacor City,” he replied.

  “What then? You must need to get word back to Prince Jametari about the p’ehdrose.”

  “Word will reach the Alluvium.”

  He’d grown stolid. She collected herself before she spoke again. She just needed to say it. “I don’t want you to go to Sacor City with me.”

  A wildness filled his eyes. “Why?” He took a step toward her, and she felt his aggression as a physical thing.

  She remained warily by Condor’s side, patted his shoulder. “I have not been very strong since Nyssa hurt me,” she said. “I mean, inside me, not just the outside. I need to go it alone from here, for my own sake, and try to find my confidence again. Face the world on my own. Do you understand?”

  Such an expression of . . . anger? Desperation? Despair? fell over his face that she was not sure what he intended to do.

  “You don’t want me?” he asked.

  “It’s not about wanting you,” she said, “or not wanting you. I just need to be on my own now.”