As dawn crept through the jungle, Mirar wiped his brow and tried to ignore the sweat already running down his back. Soon Genza would emerge from her cabin and propel the barge up the river again, and the motion would bring the relief of a breeze.
Mirar could imagine how unpleasant a river journey through Dekkar would be without a Voice on board. Each night, when Genza stopped for a meal and sleep, the breeze died. There was little or no wind on the river, and the heat was relentless.
Mirar had found his cabin stifling, so he slipped out each night to sleep on the deck with the crew. The jungle was never quiet. The buzz of insects and calls of birds formed a constant background noise. Occasionally other calls echoed through the trees. Some of these attracted more attention than others. Once a deep rumble close to shore caused all dinner conversation to end abruptly. A crewman had told Mirar it had been the call of the legendary roro, a giant black-furred carnivore with enormous pointed teeth. Stories had been told of roro that had swum out to vessels at night and dragged away passengers or crew.
Which explained why they kept several lamps burning brightly at night, and why they moored in the middle of the river, away from overhanging branches, and looped ropes around the vessel strung with bells.
The crewman was a wiry middle-aged man named Kevain. Each night the man invited Mirar to sleep beside him on the crowded deck, under his bug net, in exchange for some of Tintel’s oil. Kevain brought out a small skin of a potent liquor and they exchanged stories until the drink made them drowsy enough to sleep.
A sound nearby drew Mirar’s attention to Kevain. The man was climbing to his feet, deftly rolling up the bug net and stowing it away. He grinned at Mirar.
“We reach Bottom today,” he said. Bottom was the name of the town they were heading for. “You fear being up high?” he asked, pointing at the escarpment that loomed over them.
Mirar shook his head.
“Good. Good.” The man clenched a fist and waggled it—a gesture that Mirar had taken to be approval of courage. “It’s hard for those who do. If you feel bad, don’t look down.”
“I’ll remember that,” Mirar replied.
Kevain’s grin widened. “After that, you ride the winds. Lucky you. Ah, the Fourth Voice is awake and I best be getting to work.”
He hurried to join the crew, leaving Mirar to greet Genza. A quick morning meal was served then Genza took her position at the bow.
Finding a place to sit out of the way, Mirar watched as the jungle slid past and the cliff drew closer. After an hour or so the barge slowed. A small pier had appeared ahead of them. Genza left the job of steering the vessel to the pole men, who deftly brought it up to the pier and bound it securely.
A short but hurried interval of organization followed as supplies were carried off by domestics. Mirar collected his bag from his cabin, nodded farewell to Kevain, then waited near Genza until she gestured for him to join her. They stepped onto the pier together and started down it, Servants and domestics following.
At the end of the pier an equally narrow street passed between wooden houses built right up against each other. Walls were colored with bright paint in various stages of deterioration. The street was covered with sand, which seemed odd. Mirar had seen no sand in the jungle so far. Signs bearing pictures illustrating the business within hung above each door. There was little variety. The locals sold food, wine and transportation and hired out beds and women.
The latter leaned out of doorways wearing unconvincing smiles and bright, revealing clothes. They looked sick and unhappy, and shrank indoors at the sight of Genza and the Servants. He felt a pang of sympathy, and resolved to return here one day and see if he could help them. Genza barely glanced at the women, striding on to the end of the street.
A large building stood there. Behind it was the escarpment wall. Genza stopped to watch as a wooden box began to rise from the roof. Mirar noted the thick ropes stretching upward. He looked up. The escarpment loomed over the village. A tiny object moved against the dark rock: another box.
“The supplies are already on the way up,” Genza said. “We’ll catch the one coming down.”
Mirar noted a small crowd gathered outside the building. He sensed annoyance already changing to begrudging respect as these men and women saw the reason their ascent had been delayed.
Genza led him inside the building. A large iron wheel filled most of the room. Ropes as thick as Mirar’s arm stretched up through a gap in the roof.
“The lifters must hold close to the same weight,” Genza said, holding her hands out and raising one while dropping the other, then reversing. “The weight of the load coming down is often less than that coming up, as Dekkar has more produce to sell than western Avven. The operators load bags of sand to balance it.”
Mirar nodded. That would explain the sandy streets of the village. There would be no use in sending it back up.
As the descending box slowly dropped through the roof, Genza led Mirar up a set of wooden stairs to a platform. A man waited there, and as he saw Genza he respectfully made the sign of the star.
The box stopped level with the platform. The top half of the box’s side was open and Mirar could see several people within. He sensed fear and relief, but also exhilaration and boredom. Mirar recognized the smell of a root Dekkans used for its calming effect. Several of the passengers were chewing.
As the passengers saw Genza, their eyes widened. All made the sign of the star. The operator unlatched the bottom half of the box and opened it like a door. Once the people had left, descending from the platform using a different staircase, the man dragged out a few bags of sand. He stepped aside, and lowered his gaze as Genza entered. Mirar caught the man’s quick, curious glance as he followed.
A bell rang. The box jerked into motion. As it emerged from the roof, Mirar looked out on a sea of trees.
The jungle stretched out before them, only broken by the river, which twisted and turned upon itself several times. The view improved as they rose. He realized he could see the sea in the distance. This is what Auraya sees when she flies, he thought suddenly. He felt an unexpected pang of envy. Emerahl failed to learn to fly, but that doesn’t mean I would. I wonder if I’ll ever get a chance to ask Auraya to teach me. And if she’d agree to. I taught her to heal. She owes me something in return…
“What do you think of this little contraption?” Genza asked.
Mirar turned to regard her. “Impressive. Have there been many accidents?”
“A few.” She shrugged. “Mostly due to the foolishness of passengers. The rope is replaced every year, and tested carefully for flaws.” Looking out at the view, she gave a little sigh. “I never tire of this, no matter how many times I see it.”
Mirar gazed out at the view again. It truly was spectacular. Too soon the box slowed and then jerked to a halt. It had drawn level with a platform built out from the side of the cliff, surrounded by a railing. Mirar followed Genza out of the box and into another small village.
This place was as sprawling as Bottom had been compact. A broad street ran between widely spaced clay houses. Everything appeared to be the same bleached sand color—even the clothes of the locals—though that might have been the effect of the bright sun. It was both hotter and drier and the relentless sound of insects and birdsong had been replaced by the constant whine of wind.
“This is Top,” Genza said. “I know, not very imaginative names.”
The boxes and chests from the barge were being loaded onto a tarn, while two platten waited nearby to carry the Servants. Genza checked that all was arranged as she wished, then bade the Servants a good journey. Mirar looked at her questioningly. She smiled.
“We’ll go on alone from here. It’ll be much faster.”
“How?”
Her smile widened. “By windboat. Follow me.”
She strode through the village. At the edge Mirar saw a flat, featureless desert extending to the horizon. Genza led him to one of several windowless, two-story stone buildings at the village edge, and through a door. The interior was dark after the bright sunlight. As Mirar’s eyes adjusted he realized there was no ceiling above him. The building was hollow. To one side there were several large wooden doors. One was open, allowing in enough light to reveal the strange contraptions within.
Boats. Strange narrow boats with oversized sails. Mirar gazed around the room at the different vessels. All had flat, narrow wooden hulls and pale sails bound tightly to graceful masts. Genza looked up at him and grinned.
“You’ll like this.” She turned away as a middle-aged local man hurried toward her. He ushered them outside.
“The two windsailors over there are waiting for you,” he said, pointing at two figures in the distance standing beside two of the strange boats.
“I will not need a sailor,” she said, “but my companion will. Are the winds favorable?”
The man nodded. “If they keep up, they might take you all the way to Glymma.”
She thanked him and strode toward the distant figures. Mirar followed.
“Can they really take us all the way to Glymma?”
“So long as the wind holds,” she said. “We should be there in four days.”
Four days? Mirar shook his head. Now I know why she didn’t bother sailing around the coast. A ship would never have made it to Dekkar and back as quickly.
The figures were two young men. As Genza approached they smiled and made the sign of the star. She examined the windboats, then chose one. The sailor let go of it reluctantly. Mirar guessed that boats belonged to and were maintained by their sailors, and wondered how the young man would get his vessel back.
A gust of wind battered them, and the remaining windsailor was clearly straining to hold his boat still. When it had passed, Genza pointed to the front of the hull.
“You sit there, face forward,” she explained. “Don’t move. It takes balance as much as windsense and magic to sail these.”
Sitting down, Mirar placed his bag between his knees. He looked back to see that the windsailor had wound a scarf about his face and was now sitting at the stern. Genza settled in the same part of her adopted windboat and as another gust of wind rushed around them the sail unfurled and she shot forward.
As the boat beneath Mirar tilted, he grabbed hold of the edges. He heard the young man speak, his voice muffled. Glancing over his shoulder he saw the man pointing to the hull. He looked down and saw handholds. There were also two hollows for him to wedge his heels into. As he took advantage of both the young man made an undulating cry and the boat began to move.
It did not fly forward as Genza’s had, but slowly gained momentum. Mirar looked up to see that the sailor was unfurling the sail slowly.
They gathered speed. The boat slid away from the village. Mirar felt the wind gust against him from one side. Another cry came from behind him and he heard a snap of fabric as the sail unfurled completely. The boat turned abruptly and shot across the sand.
It was exhilarating. Mirar found himself whooping along with the windsailor. They scooted toward an unchanging horizon. But soon the sailor quietened, though the speed of the vessel didn’t diminish. The occasional crosswind blew dust into the side of Mirar’s face. The air was dry, and the sun beating down on them was hot and relentless.
Hours passed. Eventually they reached a stretch of shallow dunes. Gusts of wind began to buffet them from the side. Mirar felt every movement of the sailor as he fought the crosswinds. He felt a growing respect for the skill of the young man.
Then he remembered Genza and searched the sands ahead of them. There was no sign of her. But her boat carried only one passenger, so it was bound to go faster than his. He probably wouldn’t see her again for hours—probably not until they stopped for the night.
A spray of sand and a gleeful yell told him otherwise. Genza shot past them, laughing. Mirar could not help chuckling as she deftly sent her boat leaping off the crests of dunes and skimmed down their sides, showing skill probably gained over many more years than a mortal could ever hope to dedicate to the art.
If Genza is an example, these Voices are a lot better at having fun than the White, he thought.
Then he sobered. It was so easy to admire Genza in this place and at this moment. But this was the same woman who bred and trained birds to kill mortals, who waged war and ruled, along with her fellow Voices, an entire continent.
I will remember this side of her, he told himself, but I will not be charmed out of good sense and caution.
Though he pretended indifference, Barmonia never failed to be impressed by the ruins of Sorlina.
The high escarpment wall that had cast its shadow over them during the previous afternoons had collapsed here, and on the broken ruins of it a city had been built. The collapse had formed a natural, though steep, access point from the highlands of Avven to the lowlands of Mur, and while it was no surprise that a city had reaped the benefits of that in the past it was strange that none thrived here now.
The foreign woman had stared up at the city all the morning, stupefied by amazement. At one point, during a crossing of the river, she had said something to Raynora about there being too little water in it to sustain a city. Mikmer had put her in her place by pointing out it was the dry season, so of course there was little water.
She had looked at Mikmer with that amused, almost pitying way, but said nothing. Of course, if a city couldn’t sustain itself all year round it was bound to diminish and die anyway, but Barmonia hadn’t been about to shame Mikmer by pointing that out.
The old road zigzagged up the slope. It had once been smoothly paved, but the ground had shifted and the surface was broken in places. For this reason they had left the vehicles behind and now rode the arem that had pulled them, leading those carrying tents and supplies.
The road wound past rows of low stone walls, the remains of ancient houses. Or not so ancient, Barmonia amended. The city only died a few hundred years ago. Not like old Jeryma in the north or Karn in the south.
But the younger the ruin the less chance it had been plundered. In the past, Barmonia had opened tombs here still stuffed with treasures, and taken many statues and carvings back to Hannaya’s library and to sell to collectors. They weren’t as rare as the truly ancient pieces of other ruined cities, but they still attracted good prices. The statues often had remnants of paint on them, which buyers didn’t like, and he alone had found a method of removing it that didn’t harm the stone.
He smiled. If the directions written on the priest’s bones were correct, he was going to discover not just a new tomb, but a whole new section of the Temple of Sorli.
They were passing the larger houses near the top of the city now. Barmonia could hear Raynora talking to the woman.
“…over there. Public latrines. Yes, that’s right. They peed in front of their neighbors, and both men and women used them. Can you imagine the smell—oh, we dug up some of the dirt inside. No charcoal or dyes, but lots of the same straw-like stuff that we found in the latrines of private houses. Lots of coins, too…”
The road turned and they entered the first of the higher levels of the city in which public buildings had been constructed. Many walls still stood, as they had been made thicker and sturdier in order to support larger buildings. Ray named the buildings and described their uses.
Then the road turned again and they ascended into a large public square. The sight, as always, was both impressive and disturbing. It had been paved with enormous slabs of stone, and as the ground had shifted these had lifted and tilted. Few lay flat, so the whole space was an uneven jumble. Some of the slabs had even managed to shift into a vertical position, while others projected at such an angle that they looked as if they might fall over at any moment.
Ray fell silent as Barmonia dismounted and began to lead his mount and pack beast across the square. There had always been something eerie about this place. The wind made strange noises. The crossing took concentration and could not be done quickly. When heavily burdened, the arem could not deal with too great an incline.
When he reached the other side he breathed a sigh of relief. Sitting on a fallen column, he waited for the others to join him. The woman looked up at the structure behind him.
“The Temple of Sorli,” Raynora said quietly, leaning closer to her.
The others looked up and Barmonia watched as their faces fell.
“The dome is gone,” Yathyir said, pointing out the obvious.
“Yes.” Barmonia stood up and turned to regard the remains of the building. “It collapsed in a recent tremor most likely. Let’s hope it hasn’t blocked anything or we’ll have to get local help in.”
He handed the lead of the arem to a domestic then turned and walked inside.
Light and rubble now filled the large hall that had always been dimly lit. The former revealed the wall paintings in their full glory, as well as the damage that rain had caused. The latter had covered the floor with fragments from the size of pebbles to enormous slabs of stone. He made his way to the altar and paused to look up. The head of the massive stone goddess had broken off. He cast about and glimpsed an eye behind a large piece of the fallen dome.
Another piece rested between the back wall and the hips of the seated figure. He had to climb up into the wedge-shaped gap behind it to reach the doorway to the inner chamber. The magnificent carved doors had been removed centuries ago to become part of a collector’s mansion in Glymma.
Better that than rotting here, he thought. Or more likely the locals would have cut them up for firewood years ago.
The chamber beyond was roofed and dark, so he sent Ray back for torches. Barmonia was amused when Ray returned with only five and handed them out to the Thinkers, leaving the foreign woman without a light.
Perhaps he’s not as enchanted by her as he appears.
The inner chamber was a small room with an empty altar in the center. Barmonia had no idea where the statue had gone and would willingly pay a good sum to find out, but he had seen sketches of it. He was satisfied to see the woman was frowning at the altar.
“The bones said ‘Sorli will direct,’” she said. “Sorli is no longer here.”
“Obviously not,” Mikmer replied dryly.
“There’s a picture of her in the library,” Yathyir said gravely. “I remember it.”
Barmonia smiled. This was why he put up with the strange boy. He might be a freak, but his memory was impressively good.
“Describe her to us,” Barmonia ordered.
The youth considered the stone, then walked over to Raynora.
“Help me up,” he said.
Ray hoisted Yathyir up. The boy moved to the center of the altar and paused to think.
“She holds a cup in one hand and is pointing at the ground with the other,” he said, mimicking the pose.
“So the entrance to the secret temple is below this stone?” Ray asked, regarding the huge block dubiously.
“Probably.” Barmonia moved behind the stone and rubbed his shoe on the floor. “There are scratches here. Thinkers have always believed they were made when the stone was first moved here, but perhaps it was shifted more often than that.”
“How?” Yathyir asked, jumping down to examine the scratches.
“With magic,” Barmonia replied. “Skill is always a requirement of priests.”
“How are we going to shift it, then?”
“With our skills.” Barmonia turned to the entrance. “Which is why I brought so much equipment.”
“You didn’t need to,” the woman said quietly.
Barmonia turned to regard her. She no doubt wanted to show off whatever Skill she had, but he had no intention of letting her. “This should be moved gently and carefully or you—”
“Oh, spare me the lecture,” she interrupted. “You obviously don’t know anything about magic if you think it less subtle than levers and ropes.”
He felt anger flare at her arrogant tone, then bit back a curse as she turned her back on him to face the altar.
“Don’t you…” Taking a step forward, he reached out to grab her shoulders but his hands skittered over some invisible barrier. The others were moving backward, their faces betraying curiosity and excitement.
“I’ll lift it first,” she said to Ray. “Take a look underneath and tell me what you see.”
Barmonia felt a chill run down his spine as the altar stone rose slowly upward. His stomach clenched. Magic always had that effect on him. A woman should not be able to lift a huge block of stone. It was unnatural.
Ray dropped to the ground and examined the gap between the stone and the floor. Incredibly, he ran his hands under it, trusting that she wouldn’t drop the stone on him.
“There is a square hole beneath. Looks like you could slide the altar to the back of the room without breaking anything.”
The woman nodded and the stone began to move backward. A staircase descending into darkness was revealed. The stone settled onto the floor without a sound.
The bitch has control, Barmonia conceded. Then another thought occurred to him. If she is this powerful, how are we going to get rid of her?
They’d have to trick her, which shouldn’t be hard. She was a lone woman in a land she didn’t know, where people spoke a language she had admitted she had only recently learned. They might have to slip away from her rather than send her away. Whatever happened, he was not going to let some foreign sorceress take any of the credit for finding this tomb.
I can turn this to our advantage. If we tell people about her moving stones like some magical work beast, that’s all she’ll be remembered for.
He stepped forward. Suddenly respectful, she moved back and allowed him to lead the others down the stairs. At least she knew her place. She was the magical work beast. He was the leader of the expedition.
The walls were carved with religious scenes, but they were too coated in dust to make out. There would be time for that later. He gave up counting the stairs after one hundred. Their descent seemed to go on forever, so when he suddenly found himself at the bottom it was a surprise. He stopped.
A narrow corridor just wider than his shoulders continued into darkness. He started along it, moving slowly. The corridor was free of rubble at first, but soon became cluttered. At one point he stepped over a crack as wide as his hand that had severed the entire passage. Not long after he saw a faint light ahead, then several strides later he had reached the end of the passage.
“Halt!” he called, fearful that the others would blunder into him and push him over the precipice.
“What is it?” Mikmer asked, his voice close to Barmonia’s shoulder.
“A crack,” Barmonia replied. “An enormous crack. It must be two hundred paces to the other side.”
“Does the passage continue on the other side?”
“I don’t know. I can barely see it.”
“Let me come forward and I will make a light,” the woman offered.
Barmonia was tempted to refuse out of spite, but he could think of no other way to know the size of the crevice.
“Come forward, then.”
There was a shuffling behind him as the men made room for her to pass them. A spark of light flared into existence and floated past his shoulder, moving slowly out into the void. The opposite wall brightened. There was no passage in it.
“No,” Barmonia said. “The corridor ends here.”
As the light brightened he looked down. Not far below was a jumble of rocks, filling the crevice. Looking up, he felt his blood turn cold.
A massive slab of the wall beyond had fallen forward and now rested precariously against the opposite surface. A tremor of enough force would one day free it, and it would come crashing down on top of the rubble below.
He drew in a deep breath and let it out again. Looking down, he surveyed the floor of the crack. Some pieces of the rubble were larger than a house.
“Hopeless,” he muttered. “If anything was there it is gone now.”
He turned and pushed past the woman. The others looked at him closely, reading the disappointment from his face. He began to move past them, to lead the way back.
“There are handholds in the rock.”
Barmonia turned to see Yathyir crouching by the edge.
Walking back, he peered over the edge and saw that the boy was right. Grooves had been carved into the wall below the passage. Looking closer, Barmonia realized that the outside edge of the passage had been carved with a decorative border. This was meant to be a precipice.
Leaning out further, he saw that the handholds continued down to the floor of rubble.
“If there is anything down there, it is well buried,” he amended.
“But it can be dug out,” the woman said.
“That will take months.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
Barmonia turned to glare at her.
“Or maybe it does.” She shrugged. “The choice is yours.”
“Let me see,” Kereon said.
The woman and Yathyir moved back into the passage to allow Mikmer and Kereon to look at the crevice. Mikmer turned back, allowing Raynora past.
“I don’t like the look of that bit of wall above us,” Mikmer said. “I think, whatever we do, we should do it quickly.”
Kereon nodded in agreement.
“I most definitely agree,” Raynora said from the end of the passage, still looking upward.
Barmonia managed to stop himself scowling at them. Local workers would have to be paid. And watched, which meant someone had to be in there with them. They could be clumsy. A loud noise might be enough to send the wall tumbling down on them. Then there’d be more rubble and rotting bodies to clear.
He turned to the woman. “Then you had better get started.”
“I will,” she said, holding his gaze. “Tomorrow. This will take concentration and I could do with a night’s sleep.”
He shrugged. “Tomorrow then.” The others looked relieved—happy to leave the work to another. Yet Barmonia did not like the thought of her uncovering anything without someone else around. She might pocket something. Someone must watch her. He considered his fellow Thinkers.
Not Raynora. He’s too weak when it comes to women. Mikmer and Kereon will insist on shifts if I pick them. That leaves Yathyir. Yes, he’ll do.
The boy was a useful freak, but still a freak. If the ceiling fell, it would hardly be a loss to the world.
Turning on his heel, Barmonia led the others back along the passage.
Auraya had settled into a routine in the evenings. First she and Nekaun would enter her rooms. He would draw her attention to a new gift and she would make the appropriate noises of gratitude and admiration. Then he would leave and she would pause a moment to look around and sigh with relief.
The tables and shelves of the room now bore many objects. Large stone statues of dancers, tiny blown glass warriors and carved wooden animals stood next to toy ships floating in pottery bowls. Bolts of fabric patterned with pictures of farmers and aqueducts were neatly draped across a bench. Reed chairs had been delivered the day she had visited the river where the source plant was harvested. After a walk in one of the city’s lush gardens she had returned to find a cage containing two brightly colored birds.
All this was hers to keep, or so Nekaun had said. Which meant nothing, because she couldn’t fly back to Si carrying reed chairs and stone statues and she didn’t intend to return in a Pentadrian ship.
Next she would look for Mischief, who always hid when Nekaun was about. Tonight it took only moments to find him. A familiar pointy nose emerged from behind one of the large pottery water vessels brought every day. She crouched beside it.
“There you are, Mischief.” She smiled as he hauled himself to his feet with obvious effort and let her scratch his head. The heat made the little veez sleepy and subdued. During the day he lay sprawled on the stone floor, rising only to eat or drink. The domestics seemed fascinated by him, brought him fish, and had taught him the Avvenan words for food and water.
Danjin would be amazed to see Mischief now. He’ll be annoyed to hear the veez didn’t give the Pentadrians any trouble.
Reassured that Mischief was alive and well, she sat down in one of the reed chairs for her next nightly task. Closing her eyes, she focused her mind on the ring around her finger.
:Juran.
:Auraya. How are you?
:I’m tired of this game. Heartily sick of the sight of Nekaun, too. But otherwise I’m fine.
:And the Siyee?
:Twenty-one free, twelve still imprisoned. What has Teel reported?
:That they are in good spirits, though staying fit enough to fly is increasingly hard in the close confines of their prison.
:Have any of them reached Si yet?
:I don’t know. None have reached the Open yet. He paused. I don’t suppose the Voices have given away any useful information about themselves?
:Nothing new.
:When is Mirar due to arrive?
Auraya felt her heart skip a beat.
:Any day now.
:We have discussed this at length. At first we felt it best that you ignore him. But if the Voices intend to recruit him, then you ought to do whatever you can to stop them. Or persuade him not to join them.
:How do you suggest I do that? Auraya could not help sounding a little resentful.
Juran was silent a moment.
:I am not suggesting you seduce him.
:No, but last time we met I was sent to kill him. He’s hardly going to trust me now.
:He might. After all, you didn’t kill him.
Neither of them said what was obvious: that Mirar would not have been a problem now if she had killed him.
:I won’t know what is possible until he gets here, she told Juran. In the meantime, my main priority is freeing the Siyee.
:Yes. Of course. I will speak to you again tomorrow night.
Standing up, Auraya moved into the bedroom and lay down. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but her mind kept moving from the Siyee’s predicament to Mirar’s impending arrival. Soon she was staring at the ceiling.
She had communicated with the priests in the Open, asking them to pass on to Speaker Sirri the bad news, then later to tell them of her bargain with Nekaun and suggest that Siyee fly food and water out into the Sennon desert for the freed Siyee. A few times she had skimmed minds looking for the Siyee returning home. She had only found a few, and they had been tired, thirsty and distressed. She could do nothing to help them.
The last thing she wanted to be worrying about was meeting Mirar. But they would be watching her and Mirar closely. They would expect her to treat Mirar as an enemy, or at least someone she considered dangerous and untrust-worthy. They would expect him to treat her the same in return. The trouble was, their relationship wasn’t that simple. She had no idea how she would react to him.
I’m going to have to pretend to hate him, she thought. And he’ll have to do the same to me. That will be an even greater challenge for him, if he still thinks he loves me.
If the Voices thought she or Mirar had any fond feelings for each other, they would take advantage of it. Nekaun had already shown himself willing to use blackmail.
I’m already expecting him to offer to kill Mirar in exchange for some favor. More likely he’ll offer to kill me in order to seal a bargain with Mirar.
I hope Mirar realizes how badly timed his little visit is.
I hope he has seen the danger he’ll be putting us both in.
I hope he knows he must behave as if he hates me.
I hope he isn’t intending to take Nekaun up on his offer to kill me.
I hope…bah! I should just dream-link with him and ask.
Closing her eyes, she forced herself to breathe slowly. Though she tried to let her mind drift, it refused to settle into more than an anxious semi-conscious state.
A small, soft thump and vibration brought her back to full consciousness. Lifting her head she smiled wryly as she saw that Mischief had jumped onto the bed and was curling up nearby. Though it was cooler for him to sleep by the water vessels, he still preferred to be close by when she slept.
Somehow his presence made it easier to relax. She lost track of time. Her thoughts fragmented, then drew together again so that she was conscious, but also aware that she was not completely awake. Time to call Mirar.
His response was immediate.
:Auraya!
The feeling of surprise and pleasure that came with his response told her that she didn’t need to worry that he planned to let Nekaun kill her. She only had to worry that his infatuation with her would get them both into trouble.
Still, it was nice that someone was glad to hear from her.
:Mirar. I’ve heard you’re coming to Glymma.
:Yes. I’m afraid I have no choice in the matter. Fourth Voice Genza made it clear her invitation was more of an order than a suggestion.
:How did they find out who you are and where you were?
:Did you expect me to hide my identity here? he asked in reply.
She considered his question. Pentadrians tolerated Dreamweavers. Why would he hide? The only reason she could think of was so that he could avoid the Voices. Perhaps he didn’t want to. Perhaps it had been his intention all along to ally himself with them.
I’ve been thinking that it was bad timing for him to be visiting Glymma now, but in truth there is nothing unexpected in him coming here. It’s just bad timing that I happen to be here.
:I suppose not, she replied. But us both being here at the same time is going to be awkward. The Voices will expect us to behave like sworn enemies.
:And we aren’t?
:I have no intention of killing you.
:Even if the gods order it?
:They know the limits to my obedience. Mind you, I’d reconsider if you gave me a reason to.
:Then I had better reassure you that I have no intention of killing you, or agreeing to any offer by the Voices to do it for me, he said.
:That is a relief. How good are your acting skills?
:I think I can convince them that I despise you. That is what you have in mind, isn’t it?
:We could hardly pretend to be the best of friends. Nekaun has already blackmailed me. I don’t think he’d hesitate to do so again. If he proposes to either or both of us that the other be killed, we can at least buy time while making up our minds. If he decides one of us might be manipulated by threatening the other, he will do so without hesitation.
:And by pretending to hate each other, we buy the Siyee more time.
:Yes. Auraya felt an unexpected gratitude and affection. Thank you for doing this. It won’t endanger you or the southern Dreamweavers, will it?
:No. Once you are gone, I can claim I was bound by the Dreamweaver vow to never harm another—even my enemy.
:A vow which makes you less valuable as an ally.
:But hopefully reassures them that I am no threat to them. I’m sure the Voices and I can come to an understanding.
:I’m glad we sorted this out. When will you arrive?
:Tomorrow, or the next day. It depends on the wind.
:The wind?
:I’ll explain when I get there.
:Just make sure you do it in an angry, accusing tone.
She felt a wave of amusement.
:I will explain in a dream-link, he told her. We should link each night, to make sure we both know what the other has said or done—and what the Voices have said or done. I wonder which of us will get the best offer to join them. We should keep score.
:This isn’t a game, Mirar.
:No, of course not. But we could have a little fun at their expense, so long as it doesn’t do any harm.
The idea was tempting, but…
:I’d rather not take the risk. Not with Siyee lives at stake.
:No, you’re right. Well, I best get some sleep. It could be a long ride tomorrow.
She bade him good night, then, as she sank toward sleep, could not help noticing how much better she felt. As if a burden had been eased. It was more than just relief that Mirar agreed with her on how they would act.
I won’t be alone here any more, she thought sleepily. I’ll have a…an ally? No, perhaps just a friend.