Then someone put a bowl of water near Salverion’s hands, and he washed the blood from them and took off the white robe, splattered now with crimson, and went and sat in a chair in the corner of the room. Taliesin washed the blood from Delano’s body, using water that smelled strongly of antiseptic herbs, going carefully over all the places where the skin had been cut and stitched together again. There were many of those places, and the rest of Delano was mottled with bruising. Then a white blanket was put over him, and Taliesin sat by him to wait until he woke.
The others left, taking the instruments and cloths that had been used for the healing, but still Salverion sat in his chair, and Taliesin in his, and the only sound was the quiet breathing of the man who was healed.
I did not want to leave. I felt that I had witnessed a miracle, and I wanted to stay to see the last part of it—to see the man Delano open his eyes and speak.
As if he knew, Salverion said, “Come and sit here by me, Avala. It may be a while before he wakes.”
So I sat by him, and we waited.
Delano woke at last, and in a moment Salverion and I were at his side. Delano smiled a little, and lifted his hand to touch Salverion’s robe. He tried to speak, but Salverion said, very gently, “Say nothing, my son. Just rest. All went well. Taliesin will stay here with you, and later I will come to relieve him. There will be someone with you every moment.” The Master moved his hands over Delano’s face again and down the back of his neck, and Delano slept. His lips were curved, as if he dreamed of good things. Briefly I touched his cheek; his skin was warm but not feverish. There was a great peace in him, a sense of order, as if every part of his body was well. The surgery I had witnessed, so drastic and extensive, seemed already a long time past, and even now shattered bones were knitting together, torn tissues mending, and damaged organs and veins were being reformed with new life. Wonder overwhelmed me.
Salverion beckoned to me, and we went out. Suddenly I felt shy, awed by this greatest of all healers. Salverion said, with an amused sideways look at me, “We won’t know for a few days if I have been successful or not. Even if Delano survives, he may not be able to walk again. So you can wipe that hero worship out of your eyes and come to the kitchens and make me a sandwich. I’m starving.”
Twelve days later Delano was walking about, slowly, and managing to eat small meals. I spent most of my spare time with him, for I discovered that he was a famous poet, and I loved hearing him read his work to me. I think he enjoyed the readings as much as I did, for everyone else in Ravinath knew his work well, and he liked having a fresh audience, even if it was only me. He adored words and never grew tired of explaining meanings or telling me again and again how to pronounce something difficult. Every hour with him added new Navoran words to my knowing.
His poems were about many places in the Navoran Empire, for he had traveled much before he went to the Citadel to study and perfect his gift. From him, through his poetry, I learned much about Navoran history, about famous battles and the conquests of nations. My favorite poems were thrilling ballads about small tribes fighting back against the Empire, and winning, against impossible odds, by their cunning and audacity and sheer courage. There were also sad, angry poems about slavery and the wrongs done to conquered peoples.
“Why do you care so much about slaves?” I asked Delano, after he had read an impassioned poem about people in captivity.
“Many people from my country are enslaved,” he said. “I’m not Navoran. I’m from an island called Arridor, in the western parts of the Empire. My homeland was conquered by Navora a hundred years ago. The Navoran army overran many countries, sending shiploads of slaves back to Navora to build the city. Many of the disciples here are not Navoran.” He got up and walked slowly to a shelf and took out a large book. He grunted at the weight of it, and I rushed to help. We spread the book out on a table by a lamp, and I discovered that on every page was a map.
“This is an atlas,” he said, and opened it to a place where two of the pages unfolded out to make a single wide map. “This is the Navoran Empire. We are in this little country down here, see? That red dot is the city of Navora. This knob of land contains all the Shinali, Igaal, and Hena territories. But farther north, across these oceans, are other countries. All the places colored red are parts of the Navoran Empire, countries and islands that have been conquered, many of their people enslaved. Among them are these great countries of Amaran, Sadira, Maruthani, and Quadira. And my own dear Arridor.”
“What of these lands that are not colored red?” I asked.
“This huge country here in the east is called Shanduria. Navora could never conquer Shanduria; it’s one of the biggest and most advanced civilizations in the world. Sheel Chandra is from there. It’s an amazing country. People ride huge animals called elephants, which they cover with gorgeous silks and brocades. Elephants have noses longer than you are tall, and feet larger than meat platters.”
I did not know whether to believe him. Seeing my suspicious look, he laughed. “Ask Sheel Chandra some time,” he said. “Ask him about the golden cities, the princes whose wealth is greater even than our Emperor’s, and the ancient temples covered with carvings of gods and goddesses. Shanduria is very old, many thousands of years old. The Navoran Empire is young, by comparison.”
“Were you a slave once?” I asked.
“No. But Navoran sailors and merchants told of wonderful artists and astronomers and musicians in those far countries, and when the Citadel was built, those highly skilled people were invited to the Citadel, either to learn or to teach. So we have Sheel Chandra from Shanduria, and our master astronomer, Zuleman, from Sadira. And many disciples were chosen from the brightest young men in the Empire, to come to the Citadel and study under the masters. Among them are Tulio, your artist friend from Amaran, and, of course, my noble self, poet of highest excellence, from the fair land of Arridor.” He bowed very solemnly and moaned as he straightened up. We both laughed.
He added, his face grave again, his eyes on the map of the Navoran Empire, “You see the huge significance of the Time of the Eagle, Avala. All these nations will be affected. Countless slaves will be set free, families reunited, whole countries liberated to have their own rulers restored, living without the fear of the conqueror’s ships arriving to plunder again, to steal and enslave. This entire Empire will be different, free.”
I looked at the tiny dot that was the city of Navora and at the Hena and Igaal lands stretching to the coast, only the width of two of my fingers on this map; then, overwhelmed by old doubts and fears, I looked again at the vast Empire beyond. How could so much depend on my people? How could so much depend on me? Again I felt the weight of Zalidas’s prophecy heavy on my shoulders, and the fear that I would fail. And there was another thing added to the heaviness: my renewed longing to be a healer, and only a healer, and the grief that this was not to be.
I closed the atlas and hoped Delano would not see how much my hands shook. He did not. He said, brightly, “I’ve been writing again. A poem about my healing, how it felt when Salverion took away my pain. Would you like to hear it?”
I nodded, and we sat together by his fire. Many of our rooms had fires, with the smoke escaping up high chimneys to mountain peaks far above, to be blown away in the winter winds. I thought of the Time of the Eagle, and how the Hena people called it the All-Sweeping Wind. I tried to listen to Delano’s poem but could not. While he read he scratched his ribs a bit, where the stitched skin healed, and I thought of him on the table in the surgery, with his chest cavity opened up, and Salverion’s hands moving over his exposed lungs and heart, doing their sublime healing. Then the map of the Navoran Empire rose up again before me like an omen, obscuring the vision of the work I revered and loved.
“I’m sorry,” I said, standing up suddenly. “I have to go and see Salverion.”
Delano looked surprised. “My poem is not good?” he asked.
“Yes. But it’s made me think of something.”
&n
bsp; “Well, that’s what it’s meant to do.” He smiled. “Off you go.”
Salverion was reading one of his scrolls, but he looked up as I entered, and put the scroll away.
“How is our patient today, Avala?” he asked, speaking of Delano.
“He is very well,” I said, sitting on a stool by a lamp. “He’s writing again. A poem about your healing, and how it felt for him.”
“I look forward to reading it,” said Salverion. “But that’s not what you came to tell me, is it? What disturbs you, Avala?”
I glanced at him, saw his gray eyes boring into me, reading me. It no longer unnerved me, that he knew my thoughts at times.
I said, “I’ve been thinking about Zalidas, and his prophecy over me. I’ve also been thinking of what my mother said about our destiny being always to do with what we love. I believe what they both said, but the things are opposite.”
Salverion came and sat in a chair near me. The lamplight fell on his white beard and rim of white hair and glowed about him like a holiness.
“I love healing,” I said. “Every night I go to sleep thinking of what I saw in the surgery that day you healed Delano. And then I think of my own healings, that my mother taught me. I think of the healing I did on the battle-wounded in Gunateeta’s tent, of the arrow holes I packed, the sword cuts I stitched. I did it well, but I did not mend everything inside those people, not truly. I know that now. They will always be in pain, with parts of their bodies not working properly. The injured livers, they’ll give trouble sooner or later. So will the damaged lungs, the crushed bones, the other parts I did not have the skill to properly mend. Maybe the people I healed will die early, or get a simple fever that will break them at last and carry them off early to the shadow lands. I eased their pain, and gave them a kind of mending, and stopped poison from spreading in their veins, but it was not enough. To heal as you healed Delano, that is what my soul hungers for. So why is it not my destiny? Why must my destiny be to bind enemies together, to lead my people into war? It’s all too much, too big a thing for me to do. Even if good does come of it in the end, I’m not a warrior. I don’t want to kill. Zalidas’s prophecy goes against everything I want.”
“Oh, my love,” he said, taking one of my hands, and holding it between both of his. “Do you really think you’re in this on your own? You will have all the help you need, from people and places you least expect. Even your time here, don’t you think this is ordained, planned for you before ever Zalidas spoke? And who said you will kill? I heard that you made growling noises about Jaganath the other day, and that you have words to say to him. In that event, it won’t be a sword in your hand that you will need, but power in your heart, power in your mind, power in your very words. The kind of power that can be taught to you by only one person in this world, and that man lives here in Ravinath. Your hour, when it comes, might be quite different from what you expect.
“As for your true destiny . . . Your destiny is to heal. The Time of the Eagle is not a battle. It’s a way of life, a new age to come, a time of peace that will span many lifetimes and nations and centuries. I believe that what Zalidas foretold is true—you are the Daughter of the Oneness, the cord that binds. But the Oneness will happen over a short time, maybe within weeks or months, once it begins, and the cord that binds—well, you already bind two nations together, within your own body. Your healings have already bound you to the Igaal, since you have the promise of Ramakoda to fight with your people, when he is chieftain. Your friend, the pledge-son Ishtok, is a connecting cord between you and the Hena. Can you not see it, Avala? It is happening already. And this part of your life—being the Daughter of the Oneness—is only a part. I know that when you are young a year seems age-long, but when you consider the whole course of your life, even five years are not many. Even the great battle with Jaganath’s army will be a brief part, very possibly only a single day. And after it, enduring peace. In that long peace time, that will last for the rest of your life, what will you do?”
“I’ll heal,” I said, in tears. “But I want to heal as you do, with your light and your power and your love. I want to heal the Navoran way.”
“And so you shall,” he said, lifting his beautiful old hand, and wiping away my tears. “So you shall.”
17
In your latest letter, Mother, you mentioned reading books about philosophy. You would like the Master of Philosophy, here at the Citadel. He is not one of my usual teachers, and I have had only one talk with him. We spoke, among other things, of the meanings of names, and he told me that his name means Finished Person. Isn’t that a beautiful meaning? I would love to be a finished person, knowing wholly who I am, having absolute peace, being perfectly loving, totally embracing my path and my destiny.
—Excerpt from a letter from Gabriel to his mother, kept and later gifted to Avala
The wind was blowing strong and warm across the plain, and Ishtok and I raced our horses, laughing and yelling. The horses’ hooves thundered on the earth, and I looked behind us through the bright summer haze to the Shinali land. Through the haze my people’s house was barely visible, its thatched roof pale gold against the summer grass. White dots marked the grazing sheep, and darker dots the children who watched over them. I looked to the front again, over my mare’s streaming mane, and saw Ishtok already in the shadow of the sacred mountain. He drew his horse to a halt and called something to me, but I could not hear it. When I reached him he was looking through a small bronze telescope back across the land, toward the farms and the Citadel.
“Salverion has come to visit us, my love,” he said, smiling, handing me the telescope. “We must go back.” As we began to gallop back a joy-wildness took hold on me, and it seemed that I flew across the sunlit land, and a great song was in the air, and the river chuckled beside us. Then came a beating of drums, and a shout, and someone called my name.
I woke confused, dragged unwilling from the joy, and the throb of drums became the sound of someone knocking on my door.
“Avala! Wake up! There’s something you need to see!”
I staggered up and pulled on a robe, and went to the door.
Taliesin stood there, fully dressed, grinning. “It’s a clear night,” he said. “It’s a three-quarter moon. Perfect. Zuleman is waiting by the big telescope. Are you coming? I’ll wait out here while you get dressed. You’ll need warm clothes.”
Instantly awake, I dressed quickly, then went out and hurried with him down the lamp-lit passages. “I was dreaming that I was looking through a telescope,” I said. “It was a little one, and I was on our Shinali land.”
“Well, we’ll be looking on other lands soon,” he said. “Maybe not lands, exactly. Balls of blazing gas, perhaps. Astronomy isn’t one of my strong points, and it’s years since I’ve looked at the stars with Zuleman. He’ll explain everything. You’ve met him, haven’t you?”
“I’ve seen him across the hall, at mealtimes. But I’ve not talked to him.”
We went up several narrow flights of stairs, and came to the top of the high tower where Taliesin had shown me the wolves in the snow, through the great telescope. The room was in total darkness, but for the open window with the myriads of stars beyond, with the moon low over the mountains. Before the window were the dark shapes of the telescope and the Master of Astronomy waiting for us. As we entered, the Master lit a candle.
Taliesin introduced me, and the Master of Astronomy came over and took my hands.
“Welcome, Avala,” he said. “I’m so pleased you could come. It’s such a clear night, and Erdelan is so close, and the moon is perfect for viewing. We must make the most of these opportunities.”
His hands were cold, but his voice, with its strange accent, was warm and deep. He was elderly, elegant, and tall, with a hooked nose and high cheekbones. His skin was brown, and I remembered that he was from Sadira, on the far side of the Empire. His dark eyes shone with wonder and excitement.
“You’re about to see the most amazing things in t
he known universe,” he said, blowing out the candle. “I’ll just make sure I’ve still got the moon. It moves out of view amazingly fast.”
He checked, his eye to the small eyepiece of the huge telescope, and I glanced at the earth below. Dark patches of tussock poked through the moonlit snow where I had seen the wolves play four months ago, and silver streams tumbled down the black rocks, from the snow melting in the heights. It was spring now, and the mountains and valleys about Ravinath were waking up from their white winter sleep.
“Now,” said Zuleman, stepping back. “If you look through this bit here, you’ll see the shadowed edge of the moon.” He stood back and waited, as thrilled and breathless as a child waiting for someone to open a gift he was offering.
And what a gift, indeed! I caught my breath, totally unprepared for the splendor I saw. The inner curve of the moon was very bright, its shadow dark as the surrounding sky; but on that bright edge, clear and sharp and solid as if carved of shining stone, were the rims of great holes, vast flat plains, shadowed valleys, and the sculptured shapes of jagged ridges and pointed mountains. And farther out in the deep shadow, invisible but for their sunlit peaks, were the blazing summits of far mountains, bright as stars and sharp as broken glass. It was majestic, alien, glorious beyond anything I had ever imagined.
I tore my gaze away and looked back at Taliesin. I was still half blinded by the blaze of the moon. “There are mountains there!” I said, and he laughed softly.
While Taliesin looked through the telescope, Zuleman said to me, “You see that model of the planets above your head, Avala?”
I nodded, looking up. The little orbs glowed softly in the moonlight. “Taliesin showed them to me one day,” I said. “He said our world is like that little blue ball.”
“That is true. With our telescope we can see some of the other balls, the planets. To the naked eye they look just like stars. But when you see them through the telescope, you’ll see that they are indeed globes. As is our world.”