Читать книгу Fire Angels - Jane Routley - Страница 5

Sitting dozing against the dark shed wall, I had another dream of the hungry woman and her glowing red eyes. Only a waking dream, thank Tansa! The fright woke me easily. In a jump I found myself back in Woolly the Meads rickety cowshed sitting cross-legged on the smelly straw with a crick in my neck. Grey light was seeping in through the cracks in the walls and from outside came the sound of raucous birdsong greeting the fresh dawn. Woolly was leaning over the stall chirruping at something and when I staggered stiffly to his side, I saw that the calf was up taking its first drink.

"A fine young lassie calf," beamed Woolly. "You've brung us luck again Madame Dion. Here."

Sleepily I took a gulp from the flask Woolly offered me and discovered too late that it was the fiery honey spirit which had given him his nickname. Drinking mead at dawn - it was definitely time to go home and after I had stopped coughing and he, torn between amusement and apologies, had stopped thumping my back, we went outside and he helped me saddle up Pony. Or rather he saddled Pony and I watched bleary-eyed with tiredness, while his wife came out of the hut and stood patting my arm and offering me a bed in their hut.

There was no chance of my staying with the Meads. A one room hut housing a family of seven is no place to catch up on sleep. I refused as politely as I could, tied the cheese and the flagon of mead that constituted my healers fee to the back of the saddle, hauled myself up and rode off into the misty morning.

The sky was still pale and faintly pink in the east. A heavy dew had silvered the grass and hedgerows. Still a country district like Cardun rises early. As I passed down the muddy track that wound through the village of Cardun, I could hear babies crying or early morning coughing, coming though the walls of the little thatched huts along the way. I met Big Petro and Jacko the Leg walking out to their fields with hoes over their backs and Maria Prima was already pulling weeds from among her veggies.

"You be careful Madame Dion," called Maria as I passed. "I saw them Wanderers passing through last night. The forest will be crawling with 'em."

Possibly she was looking for an argument for she looked a bit disappointed when I simply nodded and went on, but I was too tired to be bothered stopping and starting our usual wrangle in which I tried to convince her that Wanderers were entirely harmless and even worthwhile people and she maintained they were thieving drunkards and whores.

A little way beyond the village the forest began. Under the towering trees the air was redolent with the delicious smells of damp earth and sweet oil. It was the most delightful time of the day. Though the dawn chorus had ended, flocks of honey parrots were still squawking among the sweet oil blossoms and the silver calls of Kurrajongs still filled the air. It was so peaceful here with nobody else about. Pony ambled along steadily and I must have nodded off in the saddle.

Suddenly I was in the great cathedral again. It was roofless, its arches straining up at the sky like broken ribs, and up above the stars peered in at me watching, watching like hungry cats. Before me was a white statue of Mother Karana. So beautiful mother Karana, but as I stood marveling up at her, her eyes suddenly flickered to red. Glowing hungry red. She smiled a wet red smile. Cold shock went though me. I must run! I couldn't move! I must... Her claws bit into my arms. Her eyes. Oh God her hot red eyes. It felt like my heart was being pulled forth in a thin read line. The pain . The pain. Sucking out my soul, killing me. The agony, Oh God! No!

"Cark!" came a loud cry in my ear. I started awake and almost fell off the back of the now stationary Pony.

We were standing at the back of my hut beside the little stable where Pony lived. Pony was calmly eating hay out of the hay stack. I saw that the carking came from a big black raven that was sitting on the nearby woodpile regarding me with its beady black eyes. Ravens were regarded as lamb killers and birds of ill fortune in Cardun. I did not tell my customers that I fed them as I fed all animals that came near my hut.

I'd certainly fed this raven before. He was a regular visitor who even had a name. I called him Symon. It was not my habit to call animals with the names of people, but this raven just seemed to be a Symon. He distinguished himself by being inordinately fond of cheese which he much preferred to raw meat.

"I bet you'd like some of this cheese Woolly gave me, wouldn't you, you handsome devil," I said. "Just wait till I get Pony fixed up and I'll cut you a piece."

I heaved myself out of the saddle feeling exhaustion in every bone in my body and cursing those dreams. I'd been up all last night turning that calf in the womb and seeing it came out right. Wasn't I entitled to a little rest? But no. There was that damned woman again. That woman, that damned demon woman breaking my sleep, as she had broken it every night for the last week and many nights before.

I unsaddled Pony still cursing.

What sort of new torment was this anyway? I hadn't dreamed of Andre/Bedazzer in six months and now, just as I was hopping he had forgotten me, came this horrible vision of some demon world. Was this sent intentionally or was it just some delightful new side effect of the link that had been forged between us that time we had fought together. Sometimes lately I'd been too scared to go back to sleep after the dream for fear that I would wake again and find Andre standing by my bed as I both feared and longed for. Would this never end?

"It seems you have bad dreams Enna Dion" said a voice.

On the chopping block before the wood pile sat a pale haired man, his knees drawn up to his chin.

”Good morning to you, Enna!”

He was a Wanderer. At least I thought he was. He wore black, whereas most Wanderers wear shades of green or brown, but the holy symbols of the Wanderers; cups, candles and circles of leaves were embroidered all over his garb in the way they have.

Despite Maria Prima's remarks which were to a certain point of view true enough, I liked all the Wanderers I had met immensely and had even had a particular friend among them. Almost every month, a half-blind woman called Causa would come to call, lead by her young daughter and we would drink tea and she would tell me of the news from Gallia city. It was a strange relationship for she was a warm kind woman interested in any of my problems and yet she never told me anything of herself. I was not sure why she or any of them, for that matter, called on me. They had no need of my healing skills and in fact sometimes gave me advice. Maybe it was because I was a mage and they were a people steeped in magic. Perhaps we were simply drawn to each other in the way exiles are, for like me they had been exiled from Moria after the Revolution of Souls five years ago. We were on the very border with Moria here in Cardun and that must certainly have been what attracted them to the district.

Though in my restricted childhood I had had little to do with Wanderers even I could remember the breath of fresh air that had seemed to pass through our district when the Wanderers came. They bought news and trade goods and they mended things or helped with the harvesting. People believed them to have uncanny skills of foretelling and they also bought little magics from the Wanderers for they were far cheaper if a little less reliable then the magics my foster father sold. Yet even in Moria where the Wanderers had had their place in the scheme of things, people were ambivalent toward them. Not only where they travelling folk who looked different from the great dark haired mass of Morians, but many of them did drink and lots of them were addicted to the dream drug hazia as well. And Wanderer women had great hordes of hungry children following them about and it was never clear who the fathers of these children were.

They looked like fallen angels, white haired, raggle-taggle people with dark eyes in beautiful fine-boned faces. When I saw them in Cardun, their children always looked hungry and so I gave them what food I could. Sometimes my parishioners scolded me for feeding them.

"They know you are soft hearted now," they said. "They're thieves and trash, Madame Dion." The Wanderers were even less liked in Gallia then they had been in Moria.

Causa told me that the Wanderers were as the legends said of them, the remnants of a great race of mages who had lived beyond the Red Mountains of Moria when our ancestors had come from Aramaya 400 years ago. Their home lands had been destroyed in Smazor's run a hundred years before leaving them homeless, a hopeless wandering remnant who many people assumed would die out. They worshipped the spirits of nature and of place and so the loss of their homeland had obviously been a great blow to them.

Even drunk or dazed by hazia however they always seemed a gentle people and though I was taken aback by the sudden appearance of this man, I was not afraid.

"Greetings," I said. "May I help you?"

"It is a beautiful morning, is it not? I have a foretelling especially for you, Enna Dion."

He spoke Morian and used the Morian honorific.

"Today is a new beginning. After today, everything will be different. Two men will come to see you today, Enna Dion. You will do well to follow them. Is that cheese?"

"Yes," I said, caught out by his sudden change of tone. "Would you like a piece?"

"I love cheese," he said.

Cheese. As I took the knife out of my belt to cut it, I found myself glancing up at the woodpile. The raven was no longer there.

"The raven disappeared when I came," said the Wanderer. "But his loss is my gain."

Uncanny how Wanderers always did that. I hadn't mentioned the raven. I watched him eating the cheese. He was better dressed than most of them, cleaner and more healthy looking. A strange face. The wrinkled face of an ancient boy with dark clever eyes. I could not be sure of his age. His hair was white gold like all pure blood Wanderers.

"This is fine cheese, Enna."

"Good," I said. "Would you like a piece of bread as well?"

He looked at me. His eyes glittered.

"We are going home soon Enna Dion. Back to Moria. Back to our homeland."

His words touched me. Our homeland.

I often wished I could see Moria again, especially the hills round Mangalore where I had grown up. I shook the melancholy feeling off.

"Not while the Church of the Burning Light rules in Moria, friend," I told him. "They hate mages like us there. They'd burn us both."

He smiled up at me and repeated, "We are all going home soon."

This was an odd conversation even for a Wanderer. He looked so elated and yet mysterious that he must have been chewing hazia.

"I'll just get you that bread," said I, thinking to maybe set him on his way by doing so. Then I could get some sleep.

As I came to my front door however, it occurred to me that he might know Causa and that she would be someone to help me with these dreams. I turned back to ask him.

He was already gone. The clearing was empty of everything but cool morning light and even using magic I could not sense him anywhere.

Somehow it was as if he had taken the evil phantoms in my head away with him. I went into my hut and slept dreamlessly to wake refreshed just before midday. I completely forgot his foretelling.

Two men did come that day. They came in the late after noon when the sun was turning warm and gold on the leaves. I was chopping wood for kindling. I had plenty of kindling already, because Gill Swineherd had come just the day before and chopped me some, but I was in a bad temper. I'd remembered sometime earlier that Parrus had been back from Gallia for four days now and there had still been no sign of him here. I accepted that he didn't care much about me, but did he have to make it this obvious? These things bother you when you are overtired. I've always found chopping wood to be a good outlet for anger.

I really should break with Parrus. I had no business bedding down with anyone, let alone him. He was just sowing his wild oats among the local women as the sons of great families always do and I ... What was I doing sleeping with anyone especially a man I was fairly certain I didn't love? Whore. It was just ... Sometimes the future seemed an endless straight road stretching boringly out into the distance with me trudging along it all alone. I could not imagine anybody ever wanting to marry me, with my powers and my past, so what point was there in keeping myself pure, and denying myself these small passing excitements.

"Now come on, my girl," I said to myself in that stern voice my foster father used to use. "You've had your fair share of excitement. It'll take you this lifetime at least to pay for those mistakes."

But the answer came as it always did.

"So is this all there is and will ever be?" And then plaintively, "I'm only twenty-one."

Curse it. Now I was getting myself in a state. I threw the kindling savagely in the wood basket and grabbed another log. Hard work was the best answer.

"Hullo," said a voice behind me in Morian.

Two men, strangers, were standing in the shadow of the trees. Two men. Like the Wanderer had said. How strange.

They were not Wanderers, but ordinary Morians. It was not unusual for me to see Morians on this side of the border. Sure, all non-priestly magic was forbidden in Moria since the Church of the Burning Light had called forth the Revolution of Souls and sure, when they were healthy many Morians regarded healers like me as little better than witches, fit only for burning. The practical fact, however, was that the Revolution of Souls was still so new that there were not enough priests or nuns around capable of doing all the healing that ordinary people required. Increasing numbers of Morians had been coming over the border to seek healing from Cardun's Morian healer and the Cardun parish board allowed this as long as the Morians paid something. I always healed them whether they could pay or not. I even healed the ones who made signs of protection against witches when they thought my back was turned. What else could I do? I'm not the kind of person to turn someone with a broken leg away, just because they believe I am evil. I couldn't help hoping, no doubt misguidedly, that my kindness might sow a small seed of doubt in their minds.

So I hardly gave the men's nationality a thought. It was the words that were spoken next that shocked me.

"That's very mundane work for the Demonslayer of Gallia," one said. "Why don't you just magic them apart?"

I almost dropped the axe.

The Demonslayer of Gallia? Angels! How did he know about that? After the pains I'd taken to hide it.

"Who are you? What do you want?" I snapped.

The men came forward. They looked alike enough to be brothers and were both fair haired. Fair is a common enough coloring among lower class Morians like myself. A sign of Wanderer blood some say. One of them was not much older than me. He was tall and well-built, with a placidly handsome face. The other older one, the one who had spoken, was smaller and wiry. He had a beaky nose and bright dark eyes in a good-looking weather-beaten face. His riotously curly hair was dark enough to be called brown.

Their shoes and clothes where grey with dust and in their hands they carried felt traveler's hats.

"We're looking for Dion Appellez, previously known as Dion Michaeline." said the older one. "That's you, isn't it?”

I stared at him, unsure whether to tell the truth or deny everything.

"Who's asking?"

"My name is Tomas Holyhands. This is my half-brother, Hamel." he said. "If you think about it, you will know who we are."

Holyhands. Should I know that name?

"It's the name of an Inn near the Annac monastery in middle Moria, he continued. The Inn of the Holy Hands. The bastard children of the maid who worked in that inn came to be called Holyhands for their family name, because having no fathers they had no other name."

I just stood and stared at him. I had been born in an inn, an inn near a monastery. I was the bastard child of an inn maid, one of several. And the name Holyhands. It was familiar. So the man who stood before me must be ...

I looked into the man's bright eyes and the strong magic within me knew him for who he was.

Knew him for my brother Tomas!

I sat down hard on the chopping block.

"Tomas Holyhands!"

"Aye little sister. We've come a long way to find you."

I had so much to ask them and yet I could think of nothing to say. I had not seen them for seventeen years. I had given up on ever seeing them again a long time before the Revolution of Souls had exiled me from Moria. When I was four years old, my mother had sold me to a mage to be his apprentice and that was the last I ever saw of my disreputable family and the Inn where I had been born. A long hard time ago now, I had come to the conclusion that my family had forgotten about me and I had set out to do the same to them. Now here was the past returned, clothed in flesh.

The minutia of hospitality covered my initial confusion. There was a hut to invite them into, chairs to offer, food and drink to bring. Tomas sat down gratefully and pulled off a shoe.

"This foot is blistered to hell," he said rubbing it and I ran to fetch him a poultice.

Of all my siblings Tomas was the one I remembered best. He was the oldest and had always been the one to pick me out of puddles and, with a story and a kiss, tuck me into bed in the small dark room at the top of the stairs where we children slept in two big beds. My adored elder brother who had always seemed so big and strong. Now I was almost as tall as he was.

The other brother, Hamel did not sit.

Instead he took my hand and squeezed it tight. His hands were huge and covered in calluses.

"We are very glad to find you, Dion, and to see you so well," he said smiling with such sincerity, that despite the fact that I wasn't sure which of the others he was, I warmed to him instantly.

"Aye," said Tomas. "We've been on the road for almost three weeks now. We've been to Gallia and back. I spoke with your friend Kitten Avignon. In fact she gave me this letter for you. Here!"

He reached into his coat and passed the small white packet to me. I stood there uncertain about opening it. A letter from Kitten Avignon was normally a great event for me, but brothers ... That was even more so.

Tomas smiled at me for the first time. "We heard stories of your power to make a brother's heart proud. They still speak of your fight with that demon with awe. You're almost a legend in Gallia." He grinned. "As you were in Annac. Do you remember that time when you were three and you threw Arvy Ironmonger into the horse trough because he threw horse dung at you?"

"Yes!" I cried, my shyness chased away by delight. My memories of that time were the fuddled memories of a very small child, but one of them fitted what Tomas had said. "Was he a mean boy with black hair that stood up in the front? Who used to always call us whore's spawn? Oh yes! Did that really happen? That was great. He ran off bawling, didn't he?"

"Aye! And Aunt Minnette begged Marnie to put you in a witch manacle before anything worse happened. Sweet Tansa, Dion! Even when you were small, you were so powerful. Magic used to just flow out of you. Do you remember how the others used to get you to pull the sugar tin down from the mantle? Marnie had to put an iron chain round it in the end."

"Marnie?"

"Our mother," said Hamel quietly. "Dion looks like her, doesn't she Tomas?"

Tomas shrugged.

"How is ... our mother?" I was not sure I really wanted to know. When I had asked my foster father about that half dreamed mother at that half remembered inn, he had told me that being careless, foolish and of loose morals, she had had more children than she could feed and had happily sold me for a minimal sum to a passing mage. In the end I had come to believe him. That didn't mean I wanted the story confirmed.

"Ah Dion. I'm sorry," said Hamel. "She's been dead these three years."

"Oh!" I felt disappointment deep inside me. A door closed forever.

"And she never got to know of your success," said Tomas regretfully. "She would have been so proud and happy. She agonized about sending you away."

I blinked in surprise.

"Well don't look so surprised. What mother wouldn't?" said Tomas sharply. "But she had to. You had to learn to control your power. You were a danger to yourself and others as you were. She was trying to get the fee together for the healer's college when that Michael came and offered to take you. Even offered money for you which we always needed. But that didn't mean she liked doing it. She never even spent that money in the end. She buried it under the statue of the Blessed Mother in the Holy Way with a prayer for your protection. So have a bit of gratitude for her. You were lucky. You got away."

"Oh yes?" I snapped. His anger came out of nowhere and it made me angry. I could feel how much I wanted to believe this nice little story, a story which didn't fit with the heartless, promiscuous woman I had long believed my mother to be.

"Tomas, don't be such a bear," said Hamel easily. "You don't know what its like to be sent away. And you know Marnie said she would be full of doubting. Why shouldn't she be? Dion has no way of knowing any of these things. Marnie sent me away too," he told me. "When I was eight my father, Jean Miller took me away to be his apprentice. His wife was barren and he had no other child. Even though he told her not too, Marnie used to walk almost 7 miles to see me. At least once a month. Even to just wave at me in the street. Now I will be miller after him. A respectable profession with security. I missed her so much then and hated her sometimes, but it made my fortune. And it made yours. Can you not see?"

I was filled with the most astonishing and bitter jealousy.

"She never came to see me. All those years and not one word."

"That pig Michael insisted on that," said Tomas. "That was the kind of miserable fellow he was. He told her that if she ever contacted you, he'd send you back. He believed that contact with "a disreputable woman," he actually called her that to her face, can you believe it, could only do you harm. Possibly he was right. She believed him right. But that doesn't mean she didn't think of you often. She disobeyed him almost immediately. That day he took you away, we all watched you go, and the minute you disappeared over the hill it was as if a kind of panic took her and she turned and told me to follow you.

”'Find out where he's taking her,' she cried, ‘and if there's aught ill about the place or how he treats her, steal her away and bring her home to us.' So I walked behind you all the way to Mangalore, almost eighty miles that was, and I slept with the Wanderers under a hedgerow there for a week and everyday I'd creep around his house watching how he treated you, till he caught me, boxed my ears and sent me away with a harsh message for her. I saw no reason to take you away. There was nothing for you at Annac."

I was silent thinking of my foster father, that hard, judging man, of my childhood with him, the endless study, the tasks that never pleased him, the continual threats of abandonment when I displeased him. Of how I'd always thought I'd failed him.

"She knew you were safe," said Tomas. "She had the power of knowing these things. She knew Michael was honest."

"Michael of Moria was a cold man. He was no kind of a parent."

It looked as if Tomas was about to snap at me again, but instead he swallowed his anger.

"Aye! I can guess. But believe me Dion I've seen what might have happened to you if you stayed in Annac and you were much better off with him."

"Why did you never get in touch with me? You didn't even come and tell me when she died."

"We're here now," said Tomas gently.

"Dion." Hamel took my hand and squeezed it again. "You must understand us. Marnie was only an inn servant. And she had seven children, most of them out of wedlock. Those who didn't call her worse names, thought her mad. She had no chance of respectable work. The only reason she kept her job at the inn was that Old Halley was her half brother and couldn't bring himself to see her starve. Though he didn't treat us all that well. She believed that you were better off forgetting us all. Think of it Dion. You where the bastard daughter of the village scandal and that is all you ever would have been in Annac, no matter how great a mage you were."

I knew what he meant. Small villages have long memories. They never let you forget were you come from.

"You had a chance to be respectable," continued Hamel. "To be someone more than a servant's daughter, to have proper training, to maybe even be important, to make your own money, to have the power that money brings. The choice was so clear for her. But don't ever think it was easy."

It was as if the color of the sky had changed. I stared at him, my head full of churning thoughts. Had she cared after all? Suddenly I felt such grief that I would never know her. And suspicion. I was bought up to be suspicious of people and I wanted so badly to believe him. The desire to believe is a trap. I wanted to put my hand on his head and enter his thoughts just to be sure he was telling the truth, but it was hardly kind to do so.

Now as I stared at him a shadow crossed his face.

"I do not think you did too badly. Others have not been so lucky."

His bitter tone stung me out of doubt and into caution.

I took my hand from under his and put both of them tightly in my lap.

"So what has prompted you to come now?"

The two of them exchanged glances. Hamel's at least was guilty.

"To tell you the truth Dion, we are in need of help."

I couldn't resist saying it. I suppose I was angry.

"I might have known."

"Well and why shouldn't we ask you for help?" snapped Tomas. "You sit here all day helping strangers. We're your family, damn it.”

Hamel rounded on him.

"Look, will you shut up, Tomas. Why are you so shit-tempered anyway? Dion has every right to be suspicious. And you're just making everything worse. She's not Karac. Any fool can see that. But you'll turn her into him the way you're going. So just sit there and shut up. Aumaz!"

Tomas boggled at him. Obviously the placid Hamel rarely spoke to him like this. For a moment I was sure he was going to hit him. Then a rueful grin spread across his face.

"Aye fair enough! I'm sorry Dion. I'm behaving badly. We've had a great disappointment and it has made me very hasty tempered. Come on then, Bubba." He poked Hamel derisively in the ribs. "You're the big man now. Take the floor."

Hamel gave a long suffering roll of the eyes.

"Dion I apologize for us both," he said. "You must understand. Marnie made us promise not to bother you."

"Though she also said we would break that promise," muttered Tomas. "And she told right as usual."

"Yes, Yes," Hamel dismissed him with a wave of his hand and turned back to me. "We would not come now if we were not desperate. But we have a great need of magery and we have no one else to turn to. It concerns our sister Tasha."

"Was Tasha the fair-haired girl who liked sugar?" I asked. I was not going to let my feelings make me act badly. As Tomas said I spent my life helping strangers. I wanted to help them if I could and maybe in return I could ... I wasn't sure what, see them again? Find out more about them? Ah! Here was another trap.

Hamel laughed and the whole atmosphere of the room lightened.

"No that was Silva. She's the family beauty now. No Tasha was dark. She and Karac were twins. Do you remember?"

"Oh yes, I remember now. They were very dark. Not just in coloring, but dark people somehow. Strange. Moody and secretive."

"Aye! That's them," said Tomas. "Sweet Mother only knows what their father was like. Marnie always laughed at life and so do the rest of us more or less, but Tasha and Karac were completely different. When people called them bastards and our mother a whore, it was hard for them to forget it. They were like ... Well, when Tasha became old enough for men to start bothering her, she used to smile and lure them away to a lonely place and than she and Karac would beat them up. The villagers learned to be afraid of them."

"After you, they were the ones with the strongest magely powers," said Hamel.

"And the rest of you, do you have magic too?" I asked excited by the thought of other mages who might also be related to me.

"I've got none that I've discovered. Thomas and Silva have a very little. It was you three who had enough to become mages or healers."

"Though it wasn't so obvious in the twins," put in Tomas. "But they were little swine as children and they got worse and worse, fighting, making all kinds of devilry all the time, drinking. Eventually Marnie worked out what was troubling them. When they were 15, she took them both to see the local healer, Auntie Agnes. Auntie took one look at their auras and agreed instantly to teach them the arts of healing magic."

"So they became magic users too?"

"For a time there was talk of sending them to the Colleges in Mangalore if money or a scholarship could only be found. But then they had one of their fights and Tasha and Silva ran off with a band of travelling players and a few months later Tasha came home alone and pregnant. You would have thought Karac was her father the way he reacted. He never spoke to her again. He just left with the next band of Wanderers that came through. Then Tasha refused to leave her baby so young and later the Revolution of Souls closed the Colleges. So they never went. I'll never forgive myself for not going after Karac and smacking his head and bringing him back. It must have all started when he left."

"What?" I said fascinated and frustrated by this meandering discourse.

Tomas leaned towards me. "Have you been dreaming lately? Bad dreams? The statue of a woman trying to suck your life out? A sky full of eyes above a row of arches?"

He caught me completely off guard. I couldn't help starting, letting out a gasp.

"There," he said to Hamel. "You see. Karac took special steps. I told you so. Heartless swine!"

"A couple of months ago Tasha went away again," said Hamel. "Following a priest - his name was Darmen Stalker. He was secretary to Hierarch Jarraz. It is fearful enough to think of how Tasha might have fared at the hands of a zealot like Jarraz. But now these dreams. We all have them. Tomas and me and Silva and now you. Even her daughter has had them. All her family. We can feel her behind them. We know something is terribly wrong. We have to find her."

I was suddenly back in that dream feeling the terror. If that vision did not come out of the mind of a demon, but out of a person ... Out of a reality ... Oh sweet Tansa have mercy!

"You must help us, Dion. She might still be saved."

I looked down and saw my hands shaking. Pull yourself together, Dion. Pull yourself together. But to be reality ... Was Andre/Bedazzer involved? No. I wasn't even going to think of that possibility.

"We must have a Bowl of Seeing," I cried.

"It won't go far enough," protested Tomas.

"It's a start, Tomas," said Hamel.

"I can see over a hundred miles in any direction in the Bowl, Tomas." I strode over to the water pipe and magicked the water up the pipe and into a jug.

Hamel's jaw dropped, but Tomas smiled.

”Why Dion! You're quite the star, aren't you? Come on then, where are your Prophecy cards?”

He helped me arrange the wide low bowl on the table with the prophecy cards and fill it with water. Without being asked he produced a lock of dark hair wrapped in a white cloth from his bag.

"You know a lot about mages," I said impressed by the way he had wrapped it correctly.

"Magecraft is strong in our family, sister."

"I must warn you," I told them as I sat. "I have good range but my ability to find people through their belongings is not strong. Though I've worked on this spell, I still often get no result."

"Just do your best. If you too have been feeling Tasha's dreams, it may make a link between you," said Tomas.

I took the lock of hair and began the ritual. Since I'd been working in Cardun I'd been practicing magic largely without the spells and rituals I had been taught as an apprentice, because it seemed quite easy for me and was quicker. Now, however, I was glad I had been trained to know the words. They helped clear the thoughts and emotions which churned my mind.

The Bowl of Seeing is the way we mages spy on each other. You can detect all magical activity for as far as you are able to see in it. It looks like pinpoints of light in a black sky. The cards of Prophecy will tell you things about the individual lights. If used by a mage with psychic powers, the Bowl and cards in conjunction with a personal object of the target can be used to locate anybody even when they are not using magical powers. This was what I was going to try to do now.

For a moment after I cast the spell however, I was too surprised to do the locating spell.

"Where is the grid?" I asked Tomas. "There's so little magic."

"Be fair. There aren't many mages left in Moria," said Tomas.

"But the priests and the monks should show up. And surely the Burning Light still accepts priest-mages. They told the Prince's Council they were maintaining the grid."

"And they aren't?"

"Well look at this."

I changed my direction and showed Tomas how a properly protected country should look. Gallia was a mass of pinpoints of light, but even in the darker areas there were little pinpoints of light at regular intervals. Magical watching posts carefully manned and guarded, that watched always for necromancy. The geography of the Oesteradd peninsula meant it was small and densely populated enough to be thoroughly watched, making it very safe from that terrible, destructive magic. Necromancers use the power of demons to make them powerful and in order to draw this power from the dark hellish plane that demons inhabited, they made regular sacrifices to them. Animals sometimes, but preferably people.

I turned back to Moria. Since Smazor's run when all of eastern Moria had been destroyed, the country had traditionally been divided into three parts, North, South and Central. Since the Revolution of Souls each of these areas was overseen by a leading Burning Light priest known as a Hierarch. These Hierarchs had been members of the original seven man council who had begun the Revolution of Souls, though doctrinal arguments had since reduced their number to five.

All over central Moria were the rosy diffuse lights of priestly magic marking monasteries and churches at regular intervals for as far as my spell could reach.

"But look down here," I said. "Here in the south. This grid is full of holes. Anything could flourish here. What is the Church of the Burning Light thinking of? Stupid fools."

"Well you'll get no argument from most Morians," said Tomas.

"Oh yes?" I said tartly. "And where were they when the mobs where throwing stones at us and the Witch Hunters were manacling and burning us."

"True. But people are beginning to see the error of their ways. Now there are not enough priests to do healing and their children die of small things ... Anyway the South is very strange. They say Hierarch Jarraz has run mad. It's almost impossible not to be charged with blasphemy. People are scared and stay indoors as much as they can. I imagine even priests are nervous about practicing magic there. When I was looking for Tasha I got arrested for vagrancy, and I was in prison two day before they accepted my travel permit."

"You've been south then."

"Aye I set out after Tasha as soon as I got home from my trip. You have to have a travel permit to travel in Moria nowadays and she didn't have one. I went all the way to Beenac to Darmen Stalker's house looking for her. His servants said he would never soil himself with women and tried to arrest me for slander. It's a mad place there I tell you. No sign of Tasha. It was on my way back that the dreams started. By then I'd realized it was too dangerous to look for her in the South without some idea of her location. So can you see her?"

I brought the ritual for magical location to mind and began it. Tomas put the silky lock of hair in my hand. I was surprised at the strong impression I got from it. I could see Tasha quite clearly in my mind. A strong looking woman with olive skin, coal black hair and sulky red lips. She was beautiful in the savage way a hawk is beautiful.

I closed my eyes and dipped my hand into the bowl. In the very first moment I felt a tiny tingling in my fingers. Yet as I reached my mind out to find the exact location for it, it was gone. I searched and searched, cursing softly under my breath. It had been there. Curse it.

"What is it?" hissed Tomas.

I waved him down.

I wiped my fingers dry on my dress and tried again. It was the same, a small tingling to start with and then nothing when I put my finger on it. This time I sat still for a long time, just letting the influences of the Bowl flow over me. Every now and then I would feel a faint frisson on my fingers, but I couldn't pinpoint it. Damn it. It was like trying to scratch an itch and not being able to quite find the place.

Finally I threw down the lock of hair in disgust. It was not a very gracious gesture but I was not used to failing at magic.

"What is it?" cried Tomas. "Can't you find her?"

"Oh there's something there all right. I can feel her. I just can't find her."

Then I uttered the fatal words.

"If only I could get closer."

"You can get closer," cried Tomas. "You must get closer. Come with us back into Moria, to Annac."

"What?!"

”Come with us to Annac. Cast a bowl of seeing there. You'll be able to see much further into Moria from there. That's what we've come here for. To beg you on our knees if need be.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"You're mad. They'd burn me. They'd burn me the instant I set foot on Morian soil."

"Not if you don't practice any magic. It's safe enough just to travel if you have the permits."

"But you are asking me to do magic."

"People do magic in Moria all the time. Healers are smuggled in all over the place and we hide them from the Witch Hunters. I've hidden many myself. You come into Moria, you perform the search, and we whisk you away into hiding till its safe to come home. Easy."

Easy! Easy! I could have hit him. 'You plausible villain!' I wanted to scream at him. But he who shouts first loses. I learnt that from my foster father.

"If you think you can come here and I'll fall on you neck just because you're family ... Do you think I'm stupid? I might go into Moria for a friend, but you are nothing to me. Nothing!"

"Look I'm sorry, but you must ... Please Dion. Listen to me. It will be safe. I'll give my life for you if need be. Dion. Listen."

He caught hold of me and suddenly yelped and let go.

In my anger, I had let out at a little spike of power and burned him.

I swore and put my hand over my face. Mages were forbidden to use any kind of magic on non-mages unless requested. It was our most basic rule. And here I was burning a non-mage. What was I coming too?

"Dion I know you're angry at me. Look, burn me as much as you want to. I'll understand." He held out his hand. The welt was already showing pink on it. "But please listen to me."

My heart turned over with guilt at the sight of that welt and he would know it. My bitter thoughts returned.

"Tomas," said Hamel. He pulled Tomas' hand away. "Leave her alone. Everyone is getting too upset. Come now, let us talk of something else. Or perhaps a walk. Perhaps you'd like to go for a walk. Think things over."

I turned on him.

"There's nothing to think over. Oh you're so nice, aren't you Hamel. Well don't think I don't understand. I can see what you and Tomas are doing. Him so nasty and you so nice. Save your breath. It won't work. I want nothing to do with either of you. Why don't you just get out and leave me alone?"

"It's not like that," he snapped. "Aumaz you're just as bad as the rest of them. Just calm down. Tomas has gone rushing in like a mad bull and now everyone is upset and not thinking straight. We won't talk of it any more. Look. Read your letter. We'll go outside and come back at dusk. Maybe everyone will be calmer then and we can come to some sensible compromise."

"I don't have to do anything for you," I cried still upset, frightened at what they might ask of me, and what I might give if I let down my guard.

"I know that Dion. None the less, we need you. And so we will come back cap in hand and on our knees, and ask again more politely. And then we will abide by your decision."

His words made me feel cruel. So did Tomas' disappointed face. I tried to remind myself they were probably meant to. I tried to rescue my pride.

"Here's some salve for burns, I said pulling out the pot and giving it to Tomas. I wasn't going to rub it on for him. I was keeping my distance. "That's right. Just rub it in. Look. I would be happy to help you in anyway I can. I want to help you. But I don't want to go into Moria. And I don't think there's anything unreasonable about that."

"I understand," Hamel cut in quickly before Tomas has a chance to say anything. "But I still don't think this is the time to talk about an alternative. I think Tomas and I should go and give you some time to think about things, to get back your calm. I'm sorry we've been so tactless. Come on, Tomas."

"No," I said feeling guilty. "Please you've travelled far and I ... I'm the one who needs a walk. Please stay here. Eat. Drink."

I pulled bread and cheese out of the cupboards and a jug of apple wine off the sideboard and plonked them quickly on the table. I wanted to avoid any more talk.

"I'll go and read my letter. If anyone comes, tell them to ring the bell. I'll hear it. It's enhanced."

I went outside and began to walk along the forest track outside my hut. My words had been calm as I left them, but my mind was full of confused and angry thoughts. I walked as fast as I could. How could they expect...? I couldn't believe ... They had tricked me into becoming concerned about their sister and now part of me felt guilty because I must refuse them. I had to refuse them. How could I go into a Moria ruled by the Church of the Burning Light where five years ago many of my foster father's friends had been burnt at the stake for witchcraft? The same might easily happen to me now.

Suddenly I felt like weeping. My family. So this was my family. Who would happily spend my life to get back one who was really dear to them.

Well I wasn't going to cry about it. I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of caring. I was going to read my letter. I opened it resolutely and after about five minutes of staring blankly at it, I managed to make myself read it.

I felt instantly better. It was full of the most warm and affectionate messages from both Kitten, the courtesan for whom I had worked as a magical bodyguard and from Genny, Kitten's healer and friend, who was writing the letter for her. Experience had shown me that their affection was genuine. It was they whom I had thought of as my family for the last few years. It seemed ironic now that it should be Tomas and Hamel who had bought me their letter and even more ironic that that letter should congratulate me excitedly on having found them.

However the news it contained was so extraordinary that I began to forget my brothers and their machinations.

"Great matters are afoot in the city of Gallia," wrote Kitten or rather Genny for Kitten, since Kitten could not write. "The Duke of Gallia's strange interest in Julia Madraga has suddenly become clear and those of us who admire his flair for strategy are once again filled with admiration."

I had heard in previous letters how the Duke of Gallia, who at 29 was still unmarried, had, to the astonishment of all, begun to show an interest in marrying Julia Madraga, the last surviving member of the family who traditionally ruled Moria. His unmarried state was a result of his desire to make the most advantageous match rather than any lack of interest in women as Kitten Avignon who had once been his mistress had reason to know. He'd shown and lost interest in most of the major heiresses on the peninsula. That was why his interest in Julia Madraga was so surprising. Her chances of ascending the throne of Moria were very slim. When her grandfather, Duke Argon had died, Moria had passed into the hands of a deeply religious cousin Ayola, who had ceded all power to the Hierarchs of the Church of the Burning Light. This was the beginning of the Revolution of Souls. The Church of the Burning Light was now firmly entrenched in Moria. They had the support of the Holy Patriarch of the orthodox Aumazite Church and thus of all loyal Aumazites and that included, nominally at least, Duke Leon Saar of Gallia. Or had this changed?

"Three weeks ago," continued Kitten, "The Patriarch announced that he had withdrawn his support for the Church of the Burning Light. It seems conclusive proof has reached him that the Burning Light has been having congress with necromancy, though we lesser mortals can't help suspecting if that fact that many of Hierarch Jarraz's recent visions are critical of the Patriarch and his continuing tolerance of magecraft may be the real reason for these accusations. It was enough for the Duke however who immediately announced his plans to free Moria of this curse and to by the by, regain "our beloved Julia's throne". Those who underestimate our dear cunning Duke are astonished at the speed with which he has assembled an army of invasion. It is likely they will set off soon. A small city state like Gallia would be considerably enhanced by the great territory of Moria. There is even the possibility of a crown.

After this momentous news, the rest of the letter had faded into insignificance. The words "conclusive proof of necromancy" burned in my mind and wiped out all other thought. "Necromancy!" By all the Angels. The morning's dream came back to me then, the great statue with red eyes leaning hungrily over me and I began to tremble again. Even the fact that Kitten seemed to think it was all just politics was no comfort. The hungry stone woman was definitely some kind of demonic vision. If my brothers spoke true then Tasha had come into contact with a demon somewhere in Moria. And how else did demons touch this plane but through necromancy. So were her dreams proof of necromancy? The conclusion seemed obvious. The tall trees that leaned over the track suddenly seemed to loom darkly at me. This missing sister of mine, had she stumbled on some necromancer? Was she even now being used to fuel some terrible spell?

"Dion," said a voice behind me.

I almost jumped out of my skin. Then I saw it was only Parrus, Parrus Lavelle, finally come to see me.