Children of Enchantment (15 page)

Abruptly Amanander sat up. Gartred writhed a little against her bonds, arching her back. He slapped her face. “Be still and
answer my questions. When does he expect her?”

“Oh,” said Gartred petulantly, “he’s not bringing her here. He doesn’t want to antagonize the priests. So he’s meeting her
at Minnis in another week or two, as soon as he can get away.” She spread her legs a little wider, bucking her hips.

Amanander looked at her, scorn curling his lower lip. He would have to reach Jesselyn before the escort. He narrowed his eyes
and watched Gartred tug at her bonds. He moved over her, and she relaxed, smiling eagerly. “I’m afraid I’ll be leaving soon,”
he whispered as he tightened his grip on the candle, “and ordinarily, I wouldn’t take the time. But you’ve been so helpful,
my dear, I’m going to give you more than you ever dreamed you wanted.”

T
he beach was deserted. Not even a gull flew across the empty expanse of the wide, blue sky, and the dark sea stretched to
the horizon, the wind whipping it to little foamy peaks. The sun was warm, but the breeze was cool. Jesselyn pulled her cloak
around her and gave a brief shiver as the covered wagon lurched to an abrupt halt. Just over the last rise was the toll plaza
which marked the boundary of the hereditary holdings of the Ridenau Kings. Minnis was still more than another week’s journey
away. but once within the Ridenau lands, the long-maintained peace had encouraged the growth of numerous congregations, and
it was no longer safe for her to journey on alone. Roderic’s messenger had instructed her to wait for the escort here.

Above the water, weatherbeaten ruins rose, weird, indefinable, the remains of some forgotten city of long ago, and a crossroad
ran straight across the beach down into the waves. Beneath the water, black shapes bore mute testimony to dwellings long forgotten.

“Are you warm enough, Rever’d Lady?”

The driver’s question startled Jesselyn out of her reverie. “I’ll be fine, Chas’n.” His gray-bearded face was creased with
concern, and she noted with alarm the deep circles which ringed his faded eyes. It would be a relief to reach Minnis. She
nodded toward the back of the wagon, where Tavia lay sleeping under a thin blanket. “We had better get a fire going. I’ll
look for wood.”

She clambered out of the wagon, her much mended clerical garments of faded black rustling around her bare ankles. Her clumsy
shoes flopped awkwardly on the sand.

“As you say, Rever’d Lady.” Chas’n hoisted himself out of the wagon. His old joints were stiff from the long journey, she
knew, and she stifled the urge to offer assistance. “I’ll try to get the fire started and see to the horses. It’s as well
we’re stopping. They’re about done.”

Jesselyn nodded agreement. The air from the sea stung with a clean salt tang that reminded her of her childhood in Ahga and
made her feel as though she were fourteen again. She walked to the water’s edge, the sand shifting between her toes as it
found its way through the patched leather of her shoes. According to the Mutens, the North Sea had once been a series of five
fresh-water lakes, changed to salt when the Old Magic had caused the sea to break through the confines of the ancient channel.
She halted some five or six paces from the waterline and stared into the distance. North lay the sea, stretching to the horizon
for as far as she could see, and somewhere, off to the west, lay Ahga. It was one of those first spring days, when the air
was soft with the promise of summer, and the warmth of the sun still a surprise after winter’s cold light. She took a deep
breath, savoring the clean, salt scent, mixed with the wild smell of the beach grass, and raised her face. Perhaps it was
not so bad to be going home after all.

A thin wisp of smoke blew across her line of vision. She turned, surprised that Chas’n should have started the fire so quickly.
The old man was nowhere in sight. Concerned, Jesselyn scanned the rocks, which lay in heaps, perpendicular to the shore line.
A tall, bearded man sat on top of a low gray slab. He was smoking a long clay pipe such as the Mutens did. At her startled
gasp, he rose to his feet and made her ar awkward bow. “Jesselyn? Please, don’t be frightened. I’m Vere— your brother, Vere.”

Jesselyn stumbled back a few steps. Her initial reaction was to gather her skirts and flee to the wagon, but she controlled
herself long enough to take a closer look at the tall, thin man before her. He wore a simple gray tunic, belted at the waist,
patched gray leggings and soft leather boots. At his waist was a long dagger in a sheath decorated with intricate beadwork.
His gray hair was long and streaked with white, his cheeks above his beard decorated with swirling tatoos in green and white
and blue.

The tatoos convinced her. The patterns were familiar from the stories she had heard the Children tell, although she had never
seen them. But she knew they delineated a member of the College, someone with access and knowledge to much that had been lost
during the terrible days of the Armageddon. “Vere? Is it really you?”

“Yes.” He advanced across the sand, his pipe held at his side, one hand outstretched. She took the hand he offered, and was
struck by the delicate clasp of his long fingers. But the skin on those fingers was rougher than her own, and Vere’s eyes,
though shadowed by deep lines, were bright and piercing, the eyes of a man who saw across great distances.

“Are you going back to Ahga, too?” It was the first thing which popped into her mind at this most unexpected meeting with
Vere, the brother she barely remembered. He had left Ahga sometime during Mortmain’s Rebellion, had run away from the hopes
and expectations of a father who never understood him, from the life he was so completely unsuited to lead. She had known
for some time that Vere had gone to live among the Mutens, had been accepted as one of them at the secret College. But he
had never contacted her, and she had never heard exactly where he was, for the location of the College was among the most
jealously guarded of all the Muten secrets.

He smiled. “Yes.”

“Have you heard?” she blurted. “About Dad? About Roderic?”

“That’s what’s brought me here. I see you come well equipped.” He nodded in the direction of the wagon, where Chas’n had begun
to haul out provisions for dinner, and Tavia had emerged from her cocoon and was staring at the water. “Is that Tavia?”

Jesselyn nodded, then put out her hand to stop him when he would have called out a greeting. “No, no, you mustn’t. You’ll
frighten her. She’s not like you remember. She’s changed.”

“Why?” Vere frowned. “What’s happened to her?”

Jesselyn shook her head. “I scarcely know what to say. I have so many questions—so much has changed—I—”

“Jessie.” Vere’s thin mouth curved in a gentle smile beneath his beard. “I’m coming with you to Ahga—we have plenty of time
to talk. Introduce me to your manservant.”

She gathered up her skirts, and together they started back up the beach.

They had only gone a few steps when Vere said, “I wasn’t strictly truthful. It’s true I’m going to Ahga, but I’m here because
of you.”

“Me?” She stopped short.

“On my way back to the College, I met Everard. I’m grateful for what you did for my servant, Torach.”

Jesselyn shook her head. “By the time we found him there was nothing I could do. I saw to his funeral, that’s all.”

“That’s enough. But Everard told me you were on your way to Roderic—and I agree he must be told the content of my message
to the Elders. I knew you’d have to come this way. So I thought I’d offer myself as an escort.” Although he spoke lightly,
Jesselyn noticed how his eyes ceaselessly scanned the road and hills around them.

Jesselyn frowned. There was more to his story than Vere was telling. “Roderic is sending an escort, but perhaps now that you’re
here. I can go back.”

“And not go to Ahga?”

“Surely you can’t be eager to return. I always thought you were unhappy there, and I certainly have no desire to meet Roderic.
None at all.”

“Because of what he did in Atland?”

Jesselyn nodded.

Vere looked grim. “Our little brother might well live to regret that day. But I’m not certain that Roderic was truly responsible.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “He gave the orders.”

Vere motioned her on. “Come, Jessie. We’ll talk after dinner.”

The sun had set by the time their simple meal was finished and their utensils washed and stored away. The sky was a wash of
lavender and pink and indigo, and the water lapped against the shore as gently as a sated suckling infant. The fire, fueled
by driftwood, burned brightly. Vere stretched out his long legs and lit his pipe. Chas’n was already snoring in his bedroll,
and Tavia had retreated to the high front seat of the wagon, where she sat murmuring a tuneless lullaby to her rag doll.

“How has Tavia managed the trip?” asked Vere.

“Well enough. I couldn’t leave her, you see, and I thought—well, Ahga was her home, too, until she was married. I hoped when
she saw it maybe something would remind her that there were happier days….” Jesselyn’s voice trailed off.

“Tell me what happened.”

Jesselyn traced an aimless pattern of lines in the sand with the broken edge of a shell. “Tavia was married when she was seventeen
to a son of one of the Arkan lords. I was only six, but I remember how beautiful she was as a bride. A year or two after that,
she was traveling across the Arkan Plain to meet her husband. She was pregnant. They were attacked by Harleyriders, and the
entire party was killed.”

“And only she survived?”

“She was found a few days later.” Jesselyn wrapped her arms around her knees and stared unseeing into the fire. “You know
how brutal the Harleys are. The baby had been cut from her womb and left to die with the rest.”

“How could she have survived?”

“No one knows. I have an idea, but—” Abruptly she glanced over her shoulder. Tavia rocked her doll, oblivious to their conversation.
“I believe she must have been found by an empath.”

Vere raised an eyebrow. “An empath? What makes you think so?”

“I’ve heard the stories the Children tell—that they have the ability to heal, to heal completely. And, on her body, although
it was clear what must have happened, there are no scars, no marks of any kind. She is untouched. There isn’t even any evidence
that she was ever pregnant, let alone mutilated.’

“Except the scars she carries in her mind.”

Jesselyn nodded. “I guess whoever healed her wasn’t strong enough to heal her mind as well.”

“Such a thing would be impossible, I would think.” Vere took a long draw on his pipe. “Empathy develops over time, but even
the oldest and most experienced empaths have limits. If they spend too much of their energy at one time, they can die. And
if Tavia was as wounded as you say, I would think the empath did the best she could and hoped that time would do the rest.”

“She? You think it was a woman?” Jesselyn raised her brows in surprise.

“Empaths are almost always female.”

Jesselyn shrugged. “I’m not sure whoever it was did her a kindness.” She glanced again at Tavia. Tavia was undoing the lacings
of her bodice.

“What is she doing?” asked Vere.

“Watch.”

He stared in fascinated horror as Tavia exposed one blue-veined breast and pushed her large brown nipple into the face of
the doll. Drops of pearly, translucent milk made a spreading stain across its clumsily stitched face.

“Even her body weeps,” murmured Jesselyn.

“And she never conceived again.”

“What man would have her in her present state? You know as well as I do that it is no simple thing for a woman to conceive.
I have lain with more men than I can count, and I have never borne a child. When Tavia lost her baby, she lost her only chance
to have one. Only the Mutens—the Children— are able to bring more than one offspring into the world, and we humans are engaged
in systematically killing them.”

“It’s a matter of resources, Jessie—“

Jesselyn tossed back her hair. “Spare me the lecture. Why do men always think that simply because a woman has another point
of view, she can’t comprehend a man’s? I know that hatred is fueled by jealousy and greed and fear. But why can’t we humans
learn to accept the Children? They bleed the same color blood we do.”

Vere did not .reply. He stared into the leaping flames, puffing on his pipe. The fragrant smoke swirled about his face. Jesselyn
wondered if she should have mentioned her thoughts about the empath. But why not? Vere was a part of the secret College. Empathy
was an ability which passed from parent to child. After the Armageddon, during the Persecutions, the priests incited the mobs
to burn such people, along with the Magic-users, as witches and servants of evil. It was said many had found refuge with the
Mutens.

Finally Jesselyn spoke. “What made you run away?”

“I wasn’t happy in Ahga, Jessie. Father—” here Vere smiled at the ancient form of address used by the Mutens as a title of
respect for the Pr’fessors “—Dad never thought much of me. I was the only one of seven sons who couldn’t handle a spear or
a sword, or even a staff. And while I was there, I never thought much of myself. So I decided to try to find a place I would
fit in—where the things which mattered to me mattered to others, and I found it with the Children. What about you? You’re
a renegade, too, in your own way. What made you decide to set up the mission for the Children?”