He nodded, grinned at her. “It isn’t all bad, Kori, this being a priest I mean. Anything I want to do in here, I can. Um…” He lost his grin. “I hope it doesn’t take long, we got to get back before xera Chittar knows we left.”
“I know. Take this.” When he had the lamp, she settled to the platform, sitting cross-legged with her back to the chest. She rubbed the crystal sphere on her shirt, held it cupped into her hands. “Find the stillness,” she said aloud, “draw will out of stillness, then look.-She closed her eyes and tried to chase everything from her mind; a few breaths later she knew that wasn’t going to work, but there was a thing AuntNurse taught her to do whenever her body and mind wouldn’t turn off and let her sleep; she was to find a Place and began building an image of it in her mind, detail by detail, texture, odor, color, movement. When she was about five, she found a safe hide and went there when she was escaping punishment or was angry at someone or hurt or feeling wretched, she went there when her mother died, she went there when one of her small cousins choked on a bone and died in her arms, she went there whenever she needed to think. It was halfway up the ancient oak in a crotch where three great limbs separated from the trunk. She lined the hollow there with dead leaves and thistle fluff, making a nest like a bird did. It was warm and hidden, nothing bad could ever happen to her there, she could feel the great limbs moving slowly, ponderously beneath and around her like arms rocking her, she could smell the pungent dark friendly odor of the leaves and the bark, the stiff dark green leaves still on their stems whispered around her until she felt she almost understood what the tree said. Now she built that Place around her, built it with all the intensity she was capable of, shutting out fear and uncertainty and need, until she rocked in the arms of the tree, sat in the arms of the tree cuddling a fragment of moonlight in her arms. She gazed into the sphere, into the silver heart of it and drew will out of stillness. “Drinker of Souls,” she whispered to the sphere, in her voice the murmur of oak leaves, “Show her to me. Where is she?”
An image bloomed in the silver heart. An old woman, white hair twisted into a heavy straggly knot on top her head. Her sleeves were rolled up, showing pale heavy forearms. She was chopping wood, with neat powerful swings of the ax, every stroke counting, every stroke going precisely where she wanted, long long years of working like that evident in the economy of her movements. She set the ax aside, gathered lengths of wood into a bundle and carried them to a mounded kiln. She pulled the stoking doors open, fed in the wood, brought more bundles of wood, working around the kiln until she had resupplied all the doors. Then she went back to chopping wood. A voice spoke in Kori’s head, a male voice, a light tenor with a hint of laughter in it that she didn’t understand; she didn’t know the voice but suspected it was the Chained God or one of his messengers. *Brann of Arth Slya,* it said, *Drinker of Souls and potter of note. Ask in Jade Halimm about the Potter of Shaynamoshu. Send her half the medal. Keep the other half yourself and match the two when you meet. Take care how you talk about the Drinker of Souls away from this place. One whose name I won’t mention stirs in his sleep and wakes, knowing something is happening here, that someone is working against him. Even now he casts his ariel surrogates this way. If you have occasion to say anything dangerous, stay close to an oak, the sprites will drive his ariels away. Fare well and wisely, young Kori; you work alone, there’s no one can help you but you. *
Kori stared into the crystal a few moments longer, vaguely disappointed in the look of the hero who was supposed to defeat the mighty Settsimaksimin when all the forces of the King could not, nor could the priests and fighters of the Vales. Brann was strong and vital, but she was old. A fat old woman who made pots. Kori sighed and rocked herself loose from Her Place. She looked up at Trago. “Did you get any of that?”
Trago leaned toward her, hands on knees. “I heard the words. What’s she like?”
“Not like I expected. She’s old and fat.”
He kicked his heels against the chest, clucked his tongue. “Doesn’t sound like much. What does it mean, Drinker of Souls?”
“I don’t know. Tre, you want to go on with this? You heard the Voice, HE’s sticking his fingers in, if HE catches us… well.”
Trago shrugged. His eyes were frightened and his hands tightened into fists, but he was pretending he didn’t care. “Do I don’t I, what’s it matter? You said it, Kori. Better’n nothing.”
“I hear you.” She moved her shoulders, straightened her legs out. “Oooh, I’m tired. Let’s finish this.” She pulled the medal from around her neck, dropped it on the platform.-Think you could cut this in half like the Voice said?”
“Uh huh. Who we going to give it to?”
“I thought about that before I went to see the Women of Piyoloss and wangled my way up here.” She rubbed at her stomach, ran her hand over the crystal. “Moon Meadow’s down a little and around the belly of the mountain. The Kalathi twins and Herve are summering there with a herd of silkgoats. And Toma.”
“Ha! I thought the soldiers got him.”
“Most everybody did. I did. ‘ Kori pulled her braids to the front and smoothed her hands along them, smoothed them again, then began playing with the tassels. ‘Women talk,” she said “It was my turn helping in the washhouse. They put me to boiling the sheets; I expect they forgot I was there, because they started talking about Ruba the whore, you know, the Phrasin who lives in that hutch up the mountain behind House Kalath that no one will talk about in front of the kids. Seems she was entertaining one of the soldiers, he was someone fairly important who knew what was going on and he let slip that they were going to burn the priest next morning and throw anyone who made a fuss into the fire with him. Well, she’s Vale folk now all the way, so she pushed him out after a while and went round to the Women of Kalathin and told them. What I heard was the Women tried to get Zilos away, but the soldiers had hauled him off already. Amely was having fits and the kids were yelling and Toma was trying to hold things together and planning on taking Zilos’ hunting bow and plinking every soldier he could get sight of. What they did was, they took Amely and the young ones away from the Priest-House and got Ontari out of the stable where he was sleeping and had him take them over to Semela Vale since he knows tracks no one else does. And they gave Toma sleeproot in a posset they heated for him and tied him over a pony and Pellix took him up to Moon Meadow and told the Twins to keep him away from the Floor. They said he’s supposed to’ve calmed down some, but he’s fidgety. He knows if he goes down he gets a lot of folk killed, so he stays there, hating a lot. What I figure is, if we tell him about this, it’s something he can do when it’s just him could get killed and if it works, he’s going to make you know who really unhappy. So. What do you think?”
Trago rubbed his eyes, his lids were starting to hang heavy. “Toma,” he muttered. “I don’t know. He…” His eyes glazed over, his head jerked. “Toma,” he said, “yes.” He blinked. “Aaah, Kori, let’s get this finished. I want to go to bed.”
“Me too.” She got stiffly to her feet, sleep washing in waves over her. “Put this away, will you.” She held out the crystal sphere. “Um… We’re going to need gold for Toma, is there any of that in there? And you have to cut the medal before we go. I don’t want to come here again, besides, we already lost a week.”
Trago slid off the chest and stood rubbing his eyes. He yawned and took the sphere. “All right.” He blinked at the medal lying by his foot. “You better go back where you were before. I think the god’s going to be doing this.”
“‘Lo, Herve.”
“‘Lo, Tre, what you doin’ here?”
“‘S my time at Far Meadow. Toma around?”
“Shearin’ shed, got dry rot in the floor, he was workin’ on that the last time I saw him.”