Storm Rising (23 page)

“I would not have dared to come here, if I had not
the need,” An’desha said hastily. “I beg that you will indulge me—”

“Oh, we know, we know; you are altogether too diffident,” said Dawnfire with a laugh. “So come, what is it that brings you here, seeking us?”

“It is my friend Karal,” An’desha said. “The envoy of the Shin’a’in who replaced Querna is—is causing him great despair.”

Quickly, for he had carefully rehearsed all that he wanted to say if he got the chance, he related troubles that Jarim had wrought since his arrival. Tre’valen and Dawnfire listened sympathetically, but when he had finished, their words were a disappointment.

“I am sorry, little brother, but there is nothing that we can do to help,” Tre’valen said with finality. “I wish for your sake and for his that there was—but there is not. You and all the others involved in this sad situation will have to work your own way through this.”

“Only if it is clear—clear to Her, that is—that we must act or the consequences will be catastrophic, will we be permitted to intrude,” Dawnfire added, although her expression was sympathetic. “I am sorry.”

An’desha sighed, but he did not bother to make any further pleas although their words disappointed him greatly.
I was brought up on all of the tales of the Star-Eyed and how She sends aid only when all other courses have been exhausted. I should not be upset at this
.

In fact, sometimes She did not aid at all—unless a price was paid in lives. That, too, was something he had known.

He should not have been so disappointed, but he was, and they saw it in his eyes. He thought of poor Karal, lying on that pallet, pale and too thin with trying and failing to do a job that was beyond his strength. He thought of smug Jarim, sneering at the halfbreed An’desha, radiating an unreasoning hatred whenever he looked at Karal. There was an awkward silence for a moment, then words burst from him. “She tries Karal
past his endurance, and so does his own God!” he cried. “Is that fair?”

But Tre’valen only gazed at him steadily. “Fair?” the Avatar repeated. “You ask me if this is fair? And—you think that She and He are responsible for this?”

An’desha spread his hands mutely.

“Do you think that She is some sort of trainer of men, as one trains horses, heaping trial upon trial on a man to see if he shall fail, and how he bears up beneath the load?” Tre’valen asked. “Do you think that the Sunlord is a great clerk, with His ledger, noting what is fair and unfair and making a sheet of debts and credits?”

“It has been implied—” An’desha began.

“By men,” Tre’valen said sternly. “By men, An’desha, who would take their own narrow views of the world and squeeze the gods into those views; who would put their words in the mouths of their gods. No. They are constrained, by Their own wills, to give
us
the freedom to make our own choices and live or die by them. We are Their fledglings, but when the time comes to leave the nest, They cannot fly for us. The world is what
we
make of it, for it was given to us—as your tent is what you make of it, for it was given to you. You may keep it neat and in repair, or you may let the poles break, the hides rot. That is the truth. It is a hard truth, but truth is often hard to bear.”

An’desha flushed, feeling obscurely ashamed of his outburst.

“It is only when we have passed the bonds of this world that They may act—or when events have passed into realms where nothing men can do will mend them. Your events have come nowhere near that point.” Tre’valen finally smiled at him warmly, and An’desha flushed again, feeling as if he had been taken gently to task for something that should have been obvious.

“There are many courses that
you
may yet take,” Dawnfire suggested. “Think of all the friends that you and Karal have, those who will not be swayed by a hateful man’s willful blindness. I can tell you that the Healer already spreads her tale of a poor young man
tried past endurance, and there are as many sympathetic ears as unsympathetic. You might think on what ears you may find.”

Well, that was true enough, and while Karal was recovering, Jarim would not have a target for his abuses.

Unless he takes me for a target—and then, I think, it is likely since he will not only have to contend with me, but with Firesong, and Firesong is a past master at making fools look as foolish as they truly are
. The thought made him smile a little.

Still—it would not be easy for him to move among the people of the Valdemaran Court, defending Karal’s honor and honesty. He still often felt gawky and out of place except during a crisis, when he was too busy to think or feel self-conscious.

But I am Shin’a’in. Jarim cannot deny my heritage. And I, beyond anyone here, can vouch for Karal. Did I not see him with his master, and the way the two acted with one another? Did he not bring me through my own darkness? Did he not place his life in jeopardy to protect not only his land, but those of all the Alliance? I can speak to all of this, these things that others seem to have conveniently forgotten
.

“You have all the resources that you need to solve this trial without our intervention, little brother,” Dawnfire said as he thought through all of this. “You need only to reason out where to look, where to reach, what to grasp, and how.”

Tre’valen laughed. “And know who to ask, and guess what will result, and know how to cope with the results, and after that, the universe is easy to live with, hey?”

To his own surprise, An’desha laughed along with the Avatar, his earlier shame forgotten. He realized at that moment that he felt much more comfortable with the Avatars now than he ever had dreamed he would.

“We are your friends, An’desha,” Dawnfire said, as if she was following his thoughts.

He nodded, feeling the same warmth he knew in Karal’s company. They
were
his friends, as well as his guides and teachers—and could it be that the distance
between them, that gulf between student and mentor, was narrowing more with every moment?

“Soon enough,” Tre’valen said enigmatically.

Well, that might be. What was certain was thay things were by no means desperate, though Karal had reached his own limit. Karal’s own reticence and determination not to reveal his difficulties had actual worked against him. Most of his friends had probab not been aware of his plight; now they knew, and now was the time to organize them to
do
something about it.

The gryphons! They like Karal—and it would take braver man than Jarim to cross them! I need to talk them, let them know what’s been going on
—

“Now you are beginning to see your options” Tre’valen encouraged. “And now, I think, you should go where you can do something about them.”

“But return again, little brother,” Dawnfire added, he prepared to return to his body and the world he knew. “The Moonpaths are always open to your walking.”

He gathered himself; flung himself
down
, and then
in
.

And only then, as he opened his eyes in the quiet the garden, did he pause to think about the significan of that last remark.

The Moonpaths are always open to your walking
. The Moonpaths—all Shin’a’in could walk them on the nights of the full moon, but for Dawnfire to say that they were
always
open to his walking meant that now possessed a status, a power reserved for Sword-Sworn, Goddess-Sworn—

—and shaman.

An’desha looked in on Karal the next morning after Firesong had gone, to find him barely awake, drugged and sleepy and not really able to think well. He spoke in monosyllables, yawning between each phrase. That made him tractable, which so far as An’desha was concerned, was all to the good.

“Can’t get up,” Karal complained, and yawned. “Too tired.”

“Then stay there; I’ll get your breakfast,” An’desha told his friend and left before Karal could object. He made certain that Karal ate—soft, mild foods that the Healer had prescribed—then saw to it that he drank all the potions the Healer had left. He left Karal alone with a book to make his own meal, and by the time he returned, Karal was asleep again, the book fallen from his hands onto his chest. An’desha smiled down at him and walked softly out.

Good. He should stay that way until this afternoon, and that leaves me free to prowl
.

Rather than don his more colorful Shin’a’in garb, he ransacked his wardrobe to find a plain brown tunic and black trews, which he thought would blend nicely into the background. There wasn’t a great deal he could do about his hair, but he thought that if he tied it back and kept to the sidelines, he should be, if not ignored, certainly less conspicuous.

He took an unaccustomed place at Morning Court, staying carefully on the edges of the crowd, near the curtains. He said nothing, but kept his ears open.

Karal was the major topic of the conversations he overheard; he had positioned himself as near to the Guild Masters as possible, mostly to see what people who could reasonably be thought to be uncommitted would say.

He strained his ears, eavesdropping shamelessly, the moment he heard Karal’s name. “… the Karsite is not in his room,” said the Master of the Goldsmith’s Guild grimly. “The servants say he was not there last night. I fear that the Shin’a’in’s accusations are too true.”

“Your news is late and incomplete,” replied a woman in the tabard of the Weaver’s Guild crisply. “The Karsite is not in his room because he collapsed last night. The Healers have seen to him, and they say that he is ill with strain and grief.” She looked at the Master Goldsmith in a way that made An’desha think there was a long history of rivalry between them.

“And this means that Envoy Jarim’s accusations
must then be false?” the Master Goldsmith retorted with a broad gesture that nearly knocked the cap off of a young page next to him. “I think not! If I were an Imperial spy, I do not doubt I would be under great strain, and as for grief, we have only the Healer’s word for that.”

“And you doubt the Queen’s Own, who says the same?” the woman snapped, crossing her arms over her thin chest. “One might well ask where
your
loyalties lie, if you choose not to believe what Herald Talia says!”

The Master Goldsmith smiled at her in a superior fashion. “I say only that it is strange that the boy survived when the master did not. I say it is strange that the boy was made envoy. It is strange that the magestorms first appeared after his arrival, and it is strange that the boy preaches peace with the devils who are responsible for the death of his master.” The Master Goldsmith was clearly not deterred by the vehemenece of his fellow Master, and it seemed that Karal’s pligh represented a way for him to voice some agenda of his own.

There were plenty of people gathered around these two, courtiers and high-ranking tradesmen alike, all dressed in the fine costumes An’desha had come to expect for a Court ceremony of any kind. An’desha examined the faces of those within earshot of this conversation. All of them mirrored the same emotion grim concern.

They think Karal’s illness is nothing more than a corroboration of Jarim’s accusations
. An’desha knew that his face mirrored concern, too, but it was for a for a far different cause. He hoped there were enough people here who knew Karal too well to even suspect him of something so outrageous.

The two Guild Masters turned their verbal sparring match to another topic. He moved on, wondering what he should do about the situation, and circulated among the onlookers at Morning Court, still silent, still listenting. Karal had his friends at Morning Court, and they were out in force—even Treyvan the gryphon made
rare appearance, and he was brief but adamant in his support.

But Jarim’s adherents were far more vocal—and it was difficult to prove a negative. Karal’s supporters had only their feelings and a few facts to support them; Jarim’s had all the wild speculations they cared to concoct.

An’desha debated attending the Grand Council meeting, knowing that Jarim would do his best to turn it into an indictment of Karal. There had to be a way to keep him from having that official channel!

He debated it all through the Court, and finally decided to take full and unfair advantage of his position and approach Prince Daren himself.

He waited until Morning Court was over, extracted himself from the milling crowd, and presented himself at the door of the Queen’s Chambers, requesting a private audience with the Prince-Consort.

He waited in the wood-paneled antechamber, watched carefully by both door guards, who clearly did not recognize him out of his normal costume. He found himself wondering if the Prince would even hear his request, or if some official, unfamiliar with his name and position and deceived by his modest costume, would simply intercept the message.
They’ll probably ask me to come back later, or wait until the Grand Council meeting
, he told himself.
If it was Firesong who was asking
—

“Sir?” a page popped his head out of the door, startling not only him, but the two guards. “You’re to come in immediately, An’desha, sir!”

As the guards stared at one another and at him, obviously wondering who he was that he rated this kind of reception, An’desha didn’t wait for a second invitation. The page opened the door, and he slipped in past the boy and into the reception room of the Queen’s Chamber.

Apparently he was not the only one who was wasting no time; rather than a servant, Prince Daren was standing right there in person waiting for him, one hand stretched out in welcome.

“An’desha!” he exclaimed, clasping An’desha’s hand warmly as the Shin’a’in reached for the Prince’s hand. “Talia warned us what was happening last night. How is Karal, truly? She wasn’t certain just how he was responding.” He gestured at one of the carved chairs that stood beside a small table in the middle of the room, and An’desha took it, although the Prince himself remained restlessly standing.

“Sick and asleep, Highness,” An’desha answered gravely. “He will mend his body, and the Healers say soon, but it is up to us, I think, to mend this situation. If we cannot, he will collapse again from the strain.”