City of Sorcerers

CITY OF SORCERERS

by MARY H. HERBERT

PROLOGUE

The bright morning sun streamed in golden bars through the branches of the old gray cottonwoods that grew scattered around the abandoned clearing.

The light dappled the long, untrampled grass and sparkled on the Isin River, which flowed nearby. Its heat warmed the early breeze.

Lady Gabria felt the sun's warmth on her shoulders as she waded out of the shallow water and climbed the bank. She drew a deep breath full of the scents of sun-warmed grass, wildflowers, and the cool smell of the river. She wiped some mud from her bare feet, then dropped the hem of her long split-skirts and walked slowly into the large open space between the trees.

Gabria wasn't sure why she had come here today. It had been years since she'd felt the painful stir of memories that used to bring her to this place. She glanced back downriver to where she could see the large clan camps clustered around the riverbanks. Once again the eleven clans of Valorian had traveled across the wide-flung realm of the Ramtharin Plains to come together at the sacred Tir Samod for their annual summer gathering. Once again, out of deference and a little fear, not one clan had pitched its tents in this shady, pleasant clearing by the river.

Gabria's shoulders shifted in a slight shrug. Not that it really mattered. No one had forgotten her family---she had seen to that---and if the clanspeople wished to avoid this place where the Corin used to camp so many years ago, that was a choice she could understand. After all, the massacre of her family and clan had been totally unprecedented in remembered clan history. It was a tragedy that still reverberated through the collective consciousness of the people of Valorian.

Gabria walked deeper into the clearing. It felt so strange to be here again. The area had changed over the years, yet she could still see in her mind how this clearing had looked twenty-five years ago when her father and brothers were still alive.

She gazed from place to place, looking past the weeds and trees to the shadows in her memory: of faces, objects, and laughter long remembered and still loved.

Something caught her glance near a huge, old tree---a single grave mound adorned with a spear and helmet. A faint smile lifted her mouth, for she could see now she was not the only person who had come here recently.

The spear was new; the helmet gleamed from careful polishing. The grass and weeds had been pulled away from the mound where fresh dirt had been piled to renew its sunken height. Gabria didn't need to guess who had performed that simple task of respect. Pazric, the man who had long ago moldered into the earth beneath the spear, had once been her husband's close friend.

Gabria stared at the grave, unwilling to tear her eyes away.

The mound reminded her of another much larger grave far to the north in Corin Treld. The smell of turned earth, the soft rattle of the helmet as it swung gently in the morning breeze, the gleam of sunlight on the polished haft of the spear---they were all the same.

She stood in place, unmoving. The breeze teased a wisp of pale gold hair that had come loose from the plait coiled on the back of her neck. Despite the sun she shivered---from an old fear, a new apprehension, or perhaps from the touch of bitter memories, she didn't know. Her skin quivered at the strange chill that seeped into her, and her heart began to bang painfully in her chest.

The sunlight seemed to wither to a pale yellowing light that threw the world around her out of focus. Gabria tried to force her eyesight back to normal, but the visual images faded out of her reach and sank into a dim, opaque fog that surrounded her like a shroud. In just a moment the sunlit morning had vanished, obscured in mist and silence.

Gabria's breathing quickened. She stared in surprise at the place where the burial mound had been, even though she could not see anything through the veil of gloomy fog.

Fog. There had been fog at Corin Treld the afternoon that. . . The thought intruded into her mind with a stunning comprehension. Gods, no, she whispered silently. Not again.

Fog is coming in,
she heard a familiar voice say. It was Gabran, her twin brother.

She tried to turn, to see him in the mist, only to hear more voices faintly call nearby.

The herds are in.

Everyone is here,
Gabran called again.
Wait! What is that noise?

Unknowingly, Gabria's fingers clenched, and her nails dug into her palms. Her face was bloodless. From the other side of the river, along the flatlands to the south, a horn blew a loud, clear blast, and the sudden sound of hoofbeats came faintly on the breeze. Gabria's body shook with a violent tremor.

Taleon, get Father!
she heard Gabran call to another brother.
I must find Gabria.

There are horses coming. It sounds like a large troop.

The noise of hoofbeats grew louder, pounding in her ears like thunder.

Oh, my gods, they're attacking us!
Gabran shouted somewhere in the grayish mist. Shrieks and cries and screams of pain echoed around Gabria. Frantically she reached out to her family. She knew in a part of her mind that this event had happened twenty-four years ago and that the Corin clan was dead and buried in their mound.

She accepted, too, that this was only a vision, similar to one she had had before. But nothing could alleviate the feelings of grief and helplessness that raged through her, as fresh and painful as ever.

They are burning the tents. We must get to Father. Where is Gabria?

"I'm here!" the clanswoman cried to the unseen voices.

"Gabran, I'm here."

Gabria? Where are you? I've got to warn you!
Her brother's voice grew louder as if he had heard her and was searching through the heavy fog to reach her.

"I'm here, my brother," she answered desperately.

All at once his voice changed to grief and anger.
No! Father is down. We must
stand and fight. The women and children could run, but it is too late. We are
surrounded by horsemen. Fire everywhere. We cannot see in this smoke and fog. Oh,
gods, Gabran groaned over the furious sounds of killing. I know that man with the
scar. These men are exiles! Medb sent them. He swore to kill us, and he has. The
cowards, they're bringing lances. Oh, Gabria, be safe.

"No! Gabran, come back!" Gabria screamed. Her brother's voice rose to a cry of agony and died into silence. The other noises vanished, too, leaving Gabria alone again in the fog. She stood rooted in place, too stunned by the vision to move.

"Gabria?" a voice said beside her.

She started so violently she would have fallen if a pair of hands had not caught her and gently steadied her. The fog in her mind swept away as quickly as it had come. The sunlight and Gabria's sight returned with blinding clarity. The sounds of the river, the wind in the trees, and the distant clan gathering filled the aching void of silence.

"What's wrong? Are you all right?" the voice said again.

A long moan escaped her as she leaned into the familiar, comforting shoulder of her old friend, Sayyed Raid-Ja. She felt the chill slowly leave her body. "I'm well enough," she said sadly into the woven linen of his blue tunic. Lifting her head, she came eye to eye with him.

Sayyed, the son of a clanswoman and a Turic tribesman, had been disowned by his father when he revealed his talent to wield magic. He had come, young and eager, to find Gabria and learn her sorcery, and he had stayed with the clans to be her friend.

Thankful for his solid presence, Gabria tried to smile.

The worry eased only a little from his face, and his hands remained firmly on her arms. He was short for a Turic, so his black eyes were level with her green ones. For a moment he studied her keenly. "What happened?" he demanded. "You looked like you were about to faint. Your face is as white as a winter moon." Gabria hesitated before she answered. "I saw something---or rather heard something---out of the past,"

she said slowly.

Sayyed's swarthy face, darkly tanned from years of sun and wind, creased into a frown. He knew her well enough to recognize the tightly controlled tension in her expression and the reasons that sometimes brought her to this clearing. "The massacre?" he asked.

She nodded, her gaze leaving his to wander to a place only she could see. When she did not reply, Sayyed gently prompted, "I remember you told me about the first time you had the vision." Gabria barely moved her head. "This time though, I didn't see anything. I just heard it." Suddenly a horn blared again in the distance, and the faint staccato of hoofbeats echoed in the air. Gabria visibly winced.

Tears filled her eyes at the ghostly memories.

"They're racing on the flats this morning," Sayyed said softly.

The clanswoman let go of Sayyed's arms and rubbed at the ache beginning to throb in her temples. Forcefully she brought herself back to reality. She was the daughter of a chieftain, the wife of a chieftain, and a sorceress---she was not a weak-kneed girl to be brought to weeping by the memories of an old tragedy.

Turning her back on the clearing, Gabria made her way down along the riverbank. Sayyed kept pace beside her, satisfied that the worst seemed to be over.

Color was returning to her face, and her stride was steady.

"Why did you come here today?" he asked while they walked along the bank.

"What brought on that vision?" "I don't know," Gabria replied loudly over the rush of the shallow rapids. "I was looking for Kelene. She was supposed to go with me to visit the Reidhar camp. There is a little boy they think has the talent for magic, but he is too frightened to try his power. Kelene is so good with children; she always wins them over." Sayyed's smile was knowing and rueful. "But you couldn't find her," he said.

"No. She's off somewhere with her horse, I guess." The man cocked an eye toward the distant racing flats where he could see the crowds that had gathered for the day's racing. He had a very good idea where Gabria's daughter Kelene had gone. But that still didn't answer his question of why Gabria had gone to the clearing, and she seemed to be in no hurry to explain.

Together they climbed down the bank and waded across the Isin, Gabria silent and pensive, Sayyed respecting her reticence.

Once on the west bank, they walked downstream toward the second river, the Goldrine, which joined the Isin in a series of easy rapids. The focal point of the clan gatherings, the sacred island of the Tir Samod and its crowning temple of standing stones, lay in the middle of the rivers' confluence. On an arrow-shaped point of land directly across from the island was the council grove where the huge chieftains' tent was being raised for the upcoming meetings of the council.

Gabria paused in the shade of an old cottonwood to watch as the men around the tent began to hang the clan banners: gold, brown, indigo, green, black, yellow, gray, purple, orange, light blue, and maroon. One by one they were hung to catch the breeze until only the scarlet banner of Clan Corin was missing. One tent pole was always left empty in honor of the slaughtered clan.

The sorceress stared sadly at the empty space among the banners. "He was trying to warn me," she murmured as if to herself.

Sayyed was startled. "What?"

"I think Gabran was trying to tell me something. I only heard the sounds of the massacre this time. I couldn't see anything in the fog. But I heard him say, 'I've got to warn you!' He'd never said that before."

"Warn you about what? The massacre? Lord Medb?"

"No, not those. He didn't say anything like that in my first vision when I was trying to confront Lord Medb." Gabria hugged her arms close to her sides and tried to ignore the headache that was now pounding like a drum. "What did he mean? Why now?" she wondered aloud.

"If you were anyone else I'd think you were suffering from the heat or too much wine. But your visions always seem to have significance," Sayyed replied.

Gabria smiled slightly. "If only I knew what it was."

"Maybe it's a premonition taking the form of some disaster familiar to you," he suggested.

The clanswoman's face looked bleak. "You could be right."

A familiar shout cut across the grove, and the two people turned to see Lord Athlone come around the back of the council tent and stride toward them, a young boy at his side.

Gabria's pulse quickened as it always did at the sight of her husband. After twenty-three years of marriage, she still adored him. She watched while he approached, his hand on the shoulder of their youngest son.

At forty-six, a life span that brought many clansmen into old age, Lord Athlone was still in the prime of his power. Tall, muscular, and solid, he wore his unspoken authority as easily as the sword at his side. He was chieftain of Clan Khulinin, the largest and most powerful clan on the plains, and he held the unique position of being the only chieftain who could wield magic. Twenty-four years ago, when clan law strictly forbade the practice of sorcery and clan society was taught to abhor it, that talent would have condemned him to death or exile. But many things had changed since Lord Medb and Gabria resurrected the old arcs of magic. Now Lord Athlone tread a careful path between the growing acceptance of sorcery in the clans and the suspicion and prejudice against it that remained.