The Storm Witch (30 page)

The two women were playing a game with chalks and vera tiles on the floor when he was ushered into their day room. Drawing contorted stick figures and images of the Slain God knew what strange things. As always when they saw him, they ran squealing to touch his clothes and his hair with their long white fingers, exclaiming over its color and darkness, and holding up the ends of their own white braids to compare.

“Now then, now then,” he said, as he always did, sounding in his own ears like some wise old uncle from a play. “If you sit down and behave yourselves, I’ve got chocolate for you.”

“We know you, don’t we,” said one, while the other nodded, and nodded and kept on nodding. They had names, but since they never answered to them, no one used them, calling them only “girls” or “my dears.”

Sometimes it was hard to remember that these women were older than he was, and that though their faces were unlined, there should perhaps be some gray starting to show in the hair that had always been whiter than the sands of the beach.

“Of course you know me, I’m Xerwin,” he said. They wouldn’t remember his rank, or anyone else’s for that matter, which Xerwin had always suspected was one of the reasons the Tarxin did not like to come. They nodded, only twice thank the Slain God, but their pink eyes were empty.

“Xerwin, Xerwin, Xerwin,” sang one, sinking back to the floor.

“That’s right, and now you’re going to answer some questions for me, aren’t you?”

“You said you had chocolate,” the first one said, and the other nodded again.

“Are you sitting in your big chair? Are you behaving yourselves?” He arched his eyebrows and put his hands on his hips, as they giggled and ran for their chairs. He’d learned that if he treated the Twins as he’d treated Xendra when she was five or six, he’d get the best response.

“Now, can you sing your song for me?”

“We know lots of songs,” the twin on the left said.

“But for chocolate you’ll sing your special song, you know the one I like?” Xerwin began to hum a simple, repetitive tune. The twin on the left clapped her hands and begun to hum as well, while the twin on the right began to sing. Soon, her sister had joined her.

The words were nonsense as far as Xerwin could tell, though when he came for a Vision they always sang the same words, and as they sang, their voices grew stronger, deepened. They sat very still, clasping hands, breathing in unison. They reached the point in the song where they always stopped, and sat, quietly, their faces relaxed, older, their eyes focused to some great distance, true, but
focused
in a way they had not been moments before.

Recognizing his moment, Xerwin had his question ready. “What does the coming of the Paledyn mean for the Mortaxa?”

“We see a tall woman, a warrior, hair like old blood, scarred of face, but clean of soul and vision. She leads a small, dark child by the hand. They are singing.” Both white women smiled, identical smiles, and Xerwin’s breath caught in his throat.

“They sing a song we all know, though you never sing it with us,” the twin on the right said.

Xerwin shuddered. This woman, the woman who was speaking now, and her sister—assured, confident, smiling at some secret humor—why did they appear only when the twins were Seeing? Where were they when the Visions were gone?

“When the Paledyn comes, rain will fall in the desert; the hind chase the lion; the creatures of the sea will walk the beaches.”

“What does this mean?”

“Who is simple now? Who the child?” The twin on the left looked directly at him and smiled. “Should we speak more plain? The Paledyn changes all. Nothing will be as it was. The world as you know it will be gone, forever.”

“For better or for worse?” But now they no longer listened.

“Trees will flower in winter; the sea will rise, the land ripple and flow.”

Their voices slowly faded, and the twin on the right began singing once more. Their faces slackened and their pink eyes unfocused.

The Vision was gone, the Sight finished, and the Seers were children again. Xerwin chewed on his lower lip as he left the White Twins to the care of their attendants. He knew poetry when he heard it, and the extremity of what they’d said didn’t frighten him. Change was what they meant, great change. That was what Dhulyn Wolfshead was bringing. He stepped out into the main hall and checked the people waiting there, but he saw no sign of her.

There was one change he definitely wanted, and that was to get that Storm Witch out of his sister’s body. Dhulyn Wolfshead had said she would help with that, and the White Twins had definitely seen her leading a dark-haired child by the hand. But if he told his father what he’d learned here today . . . Xerwin let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“What weighty Vision brings about such a sigh, Tar Xerwin?”

Xerwin looked round to find Naxot at his elbow.

“Naxot, thank the Slain God.” Xerwin took his friend by the arm and led him to an uninhabited bench near the door through which the Paledyn would have passed earlier into the inner Sanctuary. Xerwin’s own attendants would keep any others out of hearing distance.

“The White Twins say that the Paledyn will bring changes, great changes.” He closed his hand around Naxot’s wrist. “I think she may bring Xendra back.”

“Can she do this?”

“Who knows? Perhaps she will persuade the Storm Witch to return to her own place.”

“But the Storm Witch is a Holy Woman.”

Xerwin bit down on his impatience. Naxot’s orthodoxy was becoming irritating. “And Paledyns are the Hands of the Slain God.”

“What will you tell the Tarxin, Light of the Sun?” Naxot said.

That is a very good question,
Xerwin thought. “What if I don’t tell him anything at all?” He looked at Naxot from the corner of his eye.

“Leave everything to the Slain God, Xerwin,” Naxot said, patting him on the shoulder. “Do nothing rash before prayer.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Xerwin said, standing up as he saw the door to the inner Sanctuary opening.

T
HE SANCTUARY HALL WAS NOTICEABLY darker now that the sun had set, and the great mirrors of polished silver and glass no longer had daylight to reflect. Remm Shalyn escorted Dhulyn across the wide expanse of floor, impossibly huge now that it was empty except for them.

“I stop out here,” he said, twisting up his lips and looking around him with bright eyes. “It was you they sent for, not me,” he added to her raised eyebrow.

“And you’ll give some thought to what we discussed?”

“I could do more than think about it, if I ask to see the First Marks, while you’re with the Seers.” He smiled and looked over her shoulder as a middle-aged woman appeared in the Seers’ doorway. She touched her forehead to Dhulyn as they neared her, and nodded to Remm Shalyn. Remm stepped to one side, leaned his shoulder against the wall next to the door, and grinned.

“I’ll be here when you come out, Dhulyn Wolfshead.”

The Seers’ portion of the Sanctuary was darker than even the almost deserted main hall. This was the section of the Sanctuary farthest from the cliff face, deep into the rock that formed the city. As Dhulyn followed her guide, her Mercenary-Schooled senses automatically noted the direction of each turning. If for some reason the lighting failed, Dhulyn would have no trouble finding her way back to the entrance—or to any other spot in the city she had already been.

“Are you Marked yourself, lady?” she asked the attendant who was guiding her.

“Well, I am, then,” the woman said, looking back over her shoulder. “But it doesn’t go deep, my Mark. I can Heal small things—scratches, sore throats, and such. I mostly look after the little ones, and for the last while I’ve been helping with the White Twins. They don’t like change, you see, it upsets them and throws off their Visions. If they see me around them more and more, little by little, I can help with them more.”

“Is their present attendant getting older?”

“You’re a sharp one, then. Though, seeing as you’re a Paledyn, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Right this way, please, Tara.”

They turned yet another corner and the light dimmed even more. The single door in front of them had raised panels, but was otherwise unadorned. The attendant noticed Dhulyn’s interest.

“The old Seer, the one before the Twins, she was blind, they say, so you don’t see the kind of decoration we have elsewhere.”

“And the White Twins, they do not care for decoration?”

“Ah well, they’re children, aren’t they? Their tastes are going to run a different way. You’ll see, Tara.”

The woman hesitated with her hand on the door latch. “You’ve been told what to expect, then, Tara? It’s not just what they look like, you see, it’s that they’re really like children, and if they’ve a Sight for you alone, well, then I have to leave you with them, you see.”

“I have been told, yes.”

Nodding, the woman opened the door and stepped through, saying “Here she is, then, my dear ones, the Tara Paledyn come to see you.” Dhulyn stepped forward, and heard the door shut behind her.

The room was full of soft light, candles in glass jars and lamps with colored shades. Two women, skin so white it almost glowed, sat at the farthest of three tables, spoons in their hands, bowls of porridge in front of them.

Even though Remm Shalyn had warned Dhulyn what to expect, her breath still faltered in her throat when she saw them. An Outlander, and a Red Horseman, Dhulyn was well used to being the palest person in any gathering, but these women made her look like a Berdanan. She had seen a horse once with the White Disease, and she knew that it happened occasionally with other animals, but to see these women, white as the finest parchment, their eyes red as coals—at first her mind simply rejected the image. She remembered what Parno had said about twins, that some could make their livings traveling with players. But these women could not have done such a thing. Like the horse Dhulyn had seen, their skin would not tan, and exposure to the sun would eventually kill them.

They had leaped to their feet as soon as Dhulyn cleared the doorway, flinging down their spoons and rushing to her with their arms outstretched. They ran without heed across chalk drawings of stick figures and round, four-legged beasts on the floor. One had a smear of jam on her cheek. And a fleck of gold in the pink iris of her left eye. Dhulyn braced herself as they flung themselves on her, wrapping their arms around her tightly enough to make her uncomfortable.

“Careful, careful of the blades, my hearts,” she said, working her arms free as gently as she could. The hilts of sword and daggers were digging into her hipbones, and undoubtedly into the rib cages of the women hugging her.

“We Saw you coming,” the one said. “We Saw you. You don’t know us, but we know you, Sister. Welcome, welcome, welcome.”

“Come, come.” They dragged her forward, not to the table that held their suppers, but to one closer to the long row of candles. “Come see our things.”

These were the toys of princesses. Wooden dolls with articulated joints, finely dressed and with little veils covering their hair. Small wooden animals populated a farmyard made with a miniature fence and stacks of vera tiles. Dhulyn pressed her lips together and looked away from the chanter that lay to one side with other musical instruments. It was altogether too much like the one Parno attached to his pipes.

“Very beautiful,” Dhulyn said as one of the women held up what was obviously her favorite doll. It was hard for Dhulyn to show more than courteous interest; her own childhood had been short, and she’d had little experience with children in her Mercenary’s life. She found herself hoping, as they continued to present her with their toys and precious possessions, that her smiles and exclamations were satisfying to the Twins. Oddly, she found the contrast between their behavior and their apparent age less distracting than their illness.

“We have a secret,” said the golden-eyed one in a whisper. “You need to See,” she said. “Come, we can all See together.”

Dhulyn’s heart froze in her chest. Would they understand what it might cost her, if they told anyone else what they knew? Almost as if they had read her mind, the other Twin put her finger up to her lips. “Secret,” she mouthed, nodding her head over and over.

Another thought struck Dhulyn, even more dreadful than the first. “Wait, wait now.” She tried to be gentle pulling back from them. “What if I don’t want to See?”

“But why?” “But you must.” They spoke simultaneously and then looked at each other with brows drawn down.

“I’m afraid.”

The Twin on the left snickered and the one on the right elbowed her. “What of?”

“I might See my Partner’s death again,” Dhulyn said simply. “And I don’t want to.”

“But we’re together.” The girl seemed to be puzzled. “Together, we can choose.”

“We can choose what we See, because we See together,” the other explained. The other one rolled her eyes in a manner so reminiscent of a child beginning to be impatient with an adult’s dimness that Dhulyn almost laughed.

“Come, come.” This time they led her over to a smaller, round table which had been cleared of a great deal of chalks, pens, tiny paint brushes—and more loose vera tiles Dhulyn saw with a shiver—now lying scattered on the floor. Three chairs had been set around the table, and the Twins made her sit in one, taking the others for themselves.

“Hands now.” Dhulyn took their hands, still sticky with the jam from their suppers.

“Clear your mind,” said the one with the golden fleck in her eye. “Clear, clear. Clear as sky.”

“What’s your question? Make your question clear.”

They began to sing, a tune familiar to Dhulyn, but with words she had never heard. Not nonsense sounds, she realized, with a shiver, she
had
heard words like them. This was the language of the Caids. How close to the original, she wondered, could this be?