City of Gods [Book 3 of the Teadai Prophecies] Page 26
Haranda could have hugged the girl, despite her motherly tone just now. “Thank you, Saldia. I accept your offer. See that those two stay in bed.”
“That won’t be a challenge.” The shade walker must have caught the strain in Haranda’s voice for she crossed her arms and gazed at the two much like Ved’nuri would have done.
Haranda turned on the recovering girls when she reached the doorway. “Behave yourselves.” Relieved to be out of there, she stepped purposefully toward the bathhouse where servants waited with soap and fresh clothing.
* * * *
The next morning just after dawn, Haranda visited the privy then headed out to find her bedfriend again, when one of the urchins practically ran her over. She snagged the child by the tunic and peered down into fearful eyes.
“Apologies, Mistress Gypsy,” the boy uttered. “Elders called a meeting.”
“Now?”
“Yes, Mistress Gypsy.” He looked nervous and Haranda fought a groan. Middlings, even children, still didn’t seem comfortable around those who could harness. “Please, Mistress Gypsy, I need to announce the meeting.”
“Of course.” She released the boy and watched as he sprinted straight to the town bells. Her quick steps toward the meeting hall were interrupted only by the sound of four loud bells ringing throughout the hamlet.
Several others were already seated when she went inside. Someone touched her arm as she stopped just inside the door, and she turned to see Wil’keive with a worried look on his face. He pulled her out of the way as others entered behind her.
“What is it?” she said in a low voice.
“I don’t know, yet. But the Elders scrambled around like headless chickens after a meeting with the slumberers.”
That’s when Haranda spotted Adelsik off to one side of the Elder’s table, wringing her hands together. Lyssinya stood near her, skirts gripped in her freckled fists, face somber. Wren leaned over Siri’s chair and nodded at something the Elder said. Haranda wished she’d been in the Netherworld with them last night, but Siri had ordered her to rest a few more nights before slumbering. Not that she regretted Wil’keive’s attentions in the least, but she was a Gypsy. And now that her slumbering ability was stronger, duty to her kin should take priority.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait long to find out what had happened. Finlor called the meeting to order once everyone except the middling children and a few servants left to tend them were present. The younglings had been brought in, not unusual for a mass meeting, but this didn’t feel like an ordinary gathering. Tension from the Elders and the slumberers pricked against Haranda’s skin and she rubbed her arms.
Siri stood and leaned hands on the long table. “We got news from Ved’nuri last night. Ved’mana has translated more of the texts. As many of you know, Cholqhuin’s raising had begun with Sureyah’s assistance and now she’s dead.” She paused as many heads nodded. “Well, there’s another problem. It seems that once the raising has begun, it must be completed before the spells are allowed to weaken. If that happens, Cholqhuin will become trapped in the Eternal Fires of Torment for an additional hundred years before another raising can be attempted.”
Haranda glanced around at the alarmed faces and waited impatiently for the rest of Siri’s speech. She had unconsciously stepped closer to Wil’keive, who touched fingers to hers.
The Elder stood straight and placed hands on her ample hips. “We must complete the raising by the next new moon.”
Instantly, the hall buzzed with voices until Finlor stood and raised hands for silence. “The Vedi have ordered us to get to the Land of the Goddess now. We leave tomorrow morning for Maricar. Pack essentials only. Leave everything else here. We can return once the raising is complete. Servants will be assigned to guard the hamlet in our absence. Get packing. We have less than twenty-eight sunrises.”
Chapter 19
The stay in Lost Miner’s Hamlet turned out to be quite relaxing until the Vedi’s discovery. Snowy had enjoyed the fact that his wife became quite amorous when Dar was in heat. That turned out to be the best part of these last few days, and he grinned as he stepped along the dirt road that led to Maricar. It had taken them four days just to cut through overgrown grasses of Briar’s Pass to reveal the ancient road, and that would have taken much longer if not for the assistance of Gypsy and Sage Energies. They wouldn’t use the unification crystals for such a task, as it weakened all those who could harness, but Haranda, Thad and others with sparking Energy took shifts to burn away much of the grasses. Too bad all the wetness hadn’t impeded the hamlet fire. They’d lost supplies and two horses from middling stupidity.
Taniras walked beside Snowy and he glanced over, but her attention was on the wolves just now. He could only make out Dar’s words in any clarity. The rest came to his mind in flashes of strange and inconsistent images. He couldn’t hear Taniras’s thoughts, either, though Dar told him that could happen as they grew old. He teased Taniras about it and had joked that he had enough disjointed thoughts from the wolves without adding a woman’s harried mind to his head.
The pack knew something about the ancient god of the underworld, and Taniras attempted each day to filter through centuries of memories to find out exactly what the ancestral pack had witnessed. Snowy got snippets of those memories through the link but they were dirty memories, enshrouded in a fog of many, many generations.
At the Elders’ insistence, and given the limited number of horses, he and the others had packed only essentials for this leg of the trip. Most who’d been taken from their homes and brought into the service of Lombreeth didn’t wish to go back. They wouldn’t be treated kindly for whoring, no matter the reason. The few who decided to venture home were escorted by several armed servants with the story of how the Gypsy folk conquered their oppressors and freed them. That would bode quite well for the kin.
Each of the four wagons held a single driver and the smallest of the children, and the rest of the room was taken up by supplies and weapons. With the exception of Henny, the rest walked. Snowy stretched again as he trudged alongside one of the wagons with Taniras. Once the Goddess turned these children marriage age, any with harnessing abilities would be called as younglings and the rest could be oathed immediately as servants. Valda and Lacy insisted on traveling with their little brood of children, those they’d saved at birth from Lombreeth’s whores. The children’s mothers, those who still lived, had been reunited with them.
For the most part, Snowy enjoyed his life as a Gypsy servant, and the wolves kept him company even when he slept. No matter where they roamed, he could hear the hum of the pack in the recesses of his mind. In fact, that link added to the mating pleasure, as he and Taniras had relations whenever Dar and her mate became amorous. He smiled at Taniras as she offered a grin that showed white teeth against her dark face. They were headed to their root home now. Maricar. Unfortunately, the messenger pigeons Taniras had sent never returned, but the villagers would welcome strangers. That was the Maricari way. Of course, urging pigeons that didn’t return had put Taniras in a sour mood for a time. She’d moaned about stupid animals and their tiny, idiotic brains. But they were untrained, wild birds, not the ones bred for that task.
Taniras eyed him. “Looking forward to seeing your root family?”
He nodded. His mother had died in childbirth and his father was killed by a felled tree just after Snowy was marriage age, but he had two root aunts, an uncle and several cousins in Maricar. “I’m curious what they’re up to these days. How they’ve faired the weather imbalance.”
“Yes. My brother is a more than a year old by now.” Taniras’s parents and baby brother still resided there too, and she’d grown a bit anxious the closer they got. Seemed the oaths couldn’t take away all feelings about their root homes. She leaned toward him. “What will I say to them?” She’d asked that same question so many times Snowy had lost count.
“Just let them know you haven’t forgotten them. You’re Gypsy kin now.”
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br /> “Yes. I feel no regrets leaving. And I don’t really miss them any longer. But it will be nice to see them again.”
Snowy caressed her hand briefly. Her change in feelings came with the calling, just as his had altered once he took his oaths. Gypsies still wished their root families well and even sent money to them, but kin came first. Kin were most important in Snowy’s life now, as was the goal of raising Cholqhuin. Two squealing children ran in front of his legs and he scolded them. He knew he must look quite intimidating in his leather tunic, sword strapped to his back, dirt on his exposed arms, and a day’s beard growth on his face. The children gawked up at him as they walked backwards then fled to their mothers. He for one would be glad to reach the Land of the Goddess, where these little ones would be aged and put into service.
Taniras chuckled and he turned to her. “You still have that talent, Devin. Even when we were children, you unsettled the rest of us. Why, I remember Kenron moving out of your way. And he was a year older than you.”
Snowy chuckled at that memory. He took on many responsibilities once his father died, what with an aging home, his share of the community garden, and training with the Maricari hunters. “I suppose I was a bit much on occasion.”
“That’s an understatement,” Greges said. He, Camlys and Birek made quick steps to catch up. Greges had the usual smirk on his face as he approached. “Kenron wet himself when you challenged him to a wrestling bout.”
Snowy laughed. “I’d forgotten about that. He claimed illness, if I remember correctly.”
Taniras hissed. “Actually, he said he’d injured his wrist milking his mother’s goat.”
“Oh, yes!” Snowy slapped his thigh as he walked and the others chortled along. There were occasions when his wife’s uncanny memory left him with a smile.
Several kin glanced at them and he nodded politely. The Maricari would definitely scramble for food and accommodations when they saw this brood headed their way. And he wondered how many from his root home would be coaxed into service. Taniras brushed a hand against his and gave him an amorous smile.
“Again?” He laughed when she nodded. Yes, he was definitely enjoying Dar’s connection to his wife.
* * * *
Once they arrived in Maricar, the place had been abandoned. The community gardens had been completely destroyed by what looked like frost or snow, most likely from the insane weather the world had experienced earlier. All the homes stood as Snowy remembered but the fire pits had been cold a while. Taniras and the rest of his Maricari Gypsy kin walked quietly among their root village, looking for anything that revealed what had happened here. The place seemed eerily quiet without the noises of children, goats and other animals. The only sounds came from the village fountains and the trees, where birds sang to each other.
He followed Taniras to her old root home. The cupboards had been cleaned of food items and the bedrooms ransacked of blankets and clothing. Lanterns were also gone.
Taniras had a hand on a cradle near the cold fireplace. “Where are they, Snowy?” Her voice held more curiosity than worry.
He felt much the same. His ties to this place no longer troubled him. These people, the Maricari, were like distant relatives now, not the close family he once knew. But he still wondered where they’d gone. “I don’t know. Looks like they abandoned the place and weren’t taken by force.” He heard Dar’s voice in his head above the hum of the pack. They fled to the mountains. Tracks and smells lead there.
“Something must have frightened them if they fled there,” Taniras said aloud.
“What?” Haranda’s voice turned them both to the open door. “Where have they gone?”
Snowy stepped outside past the Gypsy. “Dar says they went to the mountains. We don’t know why.”
“Did they leave anything behind? Food and such?”
“Not here. I would imagine all the homes have been stripped just as this one has, but we can look.”
Finlor, who’d been standing nearby, ordered servants to check all the homes.
Haranda turned away for several heartbeats. “Looks like the weather got the best of the gardens.”
Snowy simply nodded.
Taniras stepped to him. “They rely on those crops for food. Maricari hunters bring in meat but the staple comes from the gardens, as well as medicines and herbs. They might starve in the mountains.”
“They’ll survive, love.” Snowy placed a comforting hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“Of course they will,” Greges said. He had a faint smile on his lips but it looked forced. Camlys and Birek stood near him and both nodded.
Camlys moved toward Taniras. “Maricari are strong.” The tall, lanky woman wore her bow and quiver on her back, black hair cut short now like those from Hunter Forest. Her gray eyes stood out even more against her dark skin with the sunlight reflecting off her face.
“You’re right.” Taniras pulled her body straight and Snowy took his hand away. “We must concentrate on our kin.”
He noticed three older kin, two Gypsies and one servant, who looked as though they could have come from Maricar. Would have been decades ago, even centuries perhaps, as he didn’t know any of them when he lived here. From the way they looked around, as though seeing a long lost home, he was certain they had once been Maricari. He followed Taniras’s gaze to Finlor. The Elder had thin lips pursed and his tiny eyes squinted against the bright sun.
A servant ran up to him. “Nothing much left, Elder. All the foodstuffs are gone as well as animals. The crops are useless. Obviously.”
A woman screamed and everyone ran toward the largest fountain in the village center. Many of the Bankari servants were on their knees along with a few Hunters and hamlet servants. Right in the middle of the flowing fountain, where the flower-like portion allowed the water to overflow its sides, stood Ved’nuri. Or rather, a transparent, fluid image of her that danced and rippled as the water moved.
Haranda and the others pushed past Snowy and stopped at the rim of the large fountain and made genuflections.
“Ved’nuri?” Siri said. “We can see you. Though I don’t know how in blazes you managed this.”
The crowned woman smiled. “Ved’mana and Ved’emir worked this from one of the texts. We’ve been waiting for you to arrive here. This is the only water for some distance besides Prosperous Lake and you never would’ve seen me that far.” Snowy glanced north toward the large lake, which was a day’s travel by foot. “My husband and son deserve praise for this task. I’m simply the messenger.”
“What’s wrong, Ved’nuri?” Finlor moved closer with the other Elders.
“We have another problem, sons and daughters. The sixth sign of Cholqhuin’s coming has appeared. A two-headed pig was born on one of our servant’s farms. We received the pigeon this morning.”
Siri leaned forward. “How is that possible, Ved’nuri?”
“I’m afraid someone else has continued the raising.”
Snowy felt a rise in hope and he said, “Then that’s good news, Ved’nuri.” Several kin mumbled agreements.
“No. Ved’mana found something else in the texts.”
“Those bloody texts are beginning to wear on my nerves,” Finlor uttered.
Ved’nuri smiled. Not the reaction Snowy expected from her. “I agree, my son.” Nervous chuckles passed through the kin. “We’ve accounted for every Gypsy and Sage. We sense no errants or younglings that haven’t been taken into our hands. All kin are now either working with us or dead.”
Snowy didn’t even realize the Vedi could know such things. They must have learned that from the texts as well. Taniras’s fingers caressed his and he gripped her hand as he pushed down feelings of loss about Maesa and the others.
“That leaves only one answer.” Ved’nuri’s image rippled, distorting her beautiful face, and Snowy couldn’t take his eyes from hers. “Someone, probably a group of dissidents, is messing with elemental magic, much the way Sureyah did. Only they can’t harness.”
“I’m afraid they can, given the correct spells and location. Elemental magic doesn’t discriminate. But that’s not the worst of the news. Middlings who raise the ancient god can also control him.”
“What!” This time it was Siri’s outraged voice. “How is that possible, Ved’nuri? How can anyone, much less a middling, control a god?”
“It’s written in the texts, my daughter. She looked down at something in her hands. “Control the ancient god ye might, when stone and spell avoid the Light.” Colorful eyes gazed out at stunned kin. “There’s more but you get the idea. Ved’mana believes the stone the text refers to is that of the Troll, the one mentioned in the last sign.”
Snowy knew the signs, had memorized them. “The thawing of the Stone Troll.” His heart raced at the thought of anyone, especially a middling, in control of a god. Not even Gypsies could win if a god were set against them.
“Yes, my son.”
His eyes flew up when he realized Ved’nuri spoke to him and he bowed slightly. Such power she had now, even more than when he’d spoken with her in the dome after Taniras’s calling got them captured in the Land of the Goddess. He felt her power through the wolves, which had gathered among the garden ruins, invisible to any who might glance that direction. He eyed Haranda, who now studied him.
The Gypsy pulled her gaze away to focus on the crowned woman. “Where is this Stone Troll, Ved’nuri?”
“That we don’t know, Haranda. Ved’mana and Ved’emir, along with several Elders, are working on more of the texts.”
“No disrespect, Ved’nuri. But I thought the texts were almost completely translated. We can’t allow anyone to control a god.”
“Yes. I agree. What we hadn’t realized is that the texts as they appear are only the surface messages. There are more writings beneath, words that can only be seen within the dome’s protection and with the aid of certain crystals.” She glanced behind for a heartbeat. “I must go. I’ll contact you either from the Netherworld or in this manner, when there is water available. We’ll expect you home within the next two days. We could use your expertise, Finlor. Many of the texts seem to be puzzles of one sort or another.”