Zanja hesitated at the doorway as Karis knelt beside Norina and lay a hand upon her gravid torso. She smiled so sweetly that Zanja wondered how anyone could remain angry with her. Even Norina could be cajoled, for after a moment her scarred face creased with a rare smile. Bits of sunlight that came in through the lathwork speckled them with sparks of brilliance.
Leaning upon the rotting door post, Zanja saw how it must always have been between them: bound by an affection sturdy enough to survive all the disagreements and power struggles that were inevitable between two such willful women.
They talked in low voices, then Zanja heard Karis say, “Are you certain you want to know?”
Norina opened her shirt and Karis put a hand inside to feel her belly like the midwife or healer she would no doubt have been, had the elements in her blood been less radically out of balance, and had the story of her life been less out of true. “It’s a daughter,” Karis said. “Ready and restless to come out of there. And a vigorous child she’ll be–how could she not be?”
“How indeed?” Norina grumbled. “Conceived by an earth witch’s meddling–” Norina buttoned up her shirt. “It’s been a bittersweet year,” she said heavily.
They both were silent then, until Norina said quietly, “Karis, it’s a terrible position you’ve put me in. Ten years ago, when I offered to help you, I never offered to be your jailer.”
“You’ve given me ten years I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Nori, I want you to tell Zanja what you’re afraid she’s done.”
Norina sat up. “No, Karis, I told you …”
Karis looked over at Zanja, who would be just a shadow against the blaze of sunlight. “Zanja, come here.”
The grotto smelled of mold and rotten wood, but it certainly offered relief from the heat. Zanja used her porringer to dip some water from the spring; it was so cold it made her teeth ache. She brought some more for Karis, who drank it with the air of one accustomed to doing as her caretakers told her. Karis said, when Zanja had squatted on the ground beside her, “Since Norina refuses to talk, perhaps you would talk to her instead. Tell her about Fire Night, and about Medric.”
Zanja told her tale again. When she had finished, there was a silence. Norma gazed into Zanja’s face as though she were reading and re‑reading an unexpected letter and could not decide if the news it contained was good or bad. Then she put her head into her hands.
“Truth?” Karis said.
“A fire blood’s truth,” Norina said grumpily. “As full of mystery and metaphor as a blasted book of poetry. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Well, I think it only sensible to accept this seer. In fact, if what you fear is as inevitable as you say, I don’t see what else we can do.”
“You want to trust him?” Norina seemed appalled.
“Put him through your Truthken’s meat grinder first if you want.”
“A seer? His truths will change from one moment to the next. There is no point.”
“There must be a way.”
“No, Karis.” She sat forward on the bench, implacable. “No.”
Karis said, “Nori, I can’t continue like this.”
Nonna stood up abruptly. “Near fifteen years you’ve trusted me–”
“Sit down,” Karis said.
There was a silence. To Zanja’s surprise, Norina sat down. The spring made soft, lapping sounds, like a cat drinking milk. “You are not infallible,” Karis said. “I intend no insult by pointing this out, no more than you intend to insult me when you remind me of my many weaknesses. This time, I want you to trust me. Tell Zanja the truth. Let her find this seer and bring him to me.”
“No.” Zanja had never heard a voice so cold.
“If you don’t do it, I will.”
“Then you have no further need for my advice. And I have no desire to either struggle with you further or to participate in your folly. You’ll go to your doom without my help.”
In the dim light, Karis’s face seemed very pale, but this time she made no move to stop Norina from standing up and leaving. It was Zanja who leapt up and blocked the door.
“Are you insane?” Norina said softly.
“You’re making a mistake.”
They looked at each other, eye to eye, more than long enough for Norina to figure out that Zanja was no threat to her, and her entrapment in the lathe house was an illusion. But Norina didn’t move to push past Zanja. She turned and said to Karis, “No matter what I do, I am forsworn. Only you could put me in such a position.”
Karis said, exasperated, “You’re too angry to think. Even I know a way out of your dilemma.”
It was unusual, and gratifying, to see Norina so taken aback. To see her cold face quirk with wry humor was even more surprising. “You’re getting very subtle for an earth witch,” she told Karis. And then her unnerving gaze shifted to Zanja’s face. “I assume you’re wondering why Mabin arranged your murder. It was to prevent you from delivering to the enemy one of Shaftal’s most guarded secrets. But you had already done what she most feared, when you crawled through Medric’s window on Fire Night.”
“I had? What had I done?”
But Norina apparently had said all she would say. She shifted her heavy, off‑balance torso, pressed her hands to the small of her hack, and waited. Beyond her, Karis sat with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. Whatever they were waiting for, they seemed prepared for it to take a while.
Perhaps they expected Zanja to determine for herself whatever it was that Norina’s vows prevented her from telling her. Zanja took her glyph cards from their pouch. “You say I know an important secret, but what secret do I know?” She looked down: in her hand she held the Woman of the Doorway. “Karis is Shaftal’s most guarded secret? Why?” She sorted through the cards, wishing for Emil’s insight. Her fingers stopped: she held the card called Death‑and‑Life. The G’deon’s glyph.
She could not take a breath. Norina held her arm in a painful grip. She must have seemed on the verge of falling over. “But Harald G’deon didn’t–” she protested, and stopped. Who really knew the truth of what had happened the last day of Harald’s life? Not many people would have been in his sickroom, and almost everyone had been killed by the Sainnites soon afterwards. She looked up from the card to Karis, who was making a serious study of the dirt beneath her feet. “He laid his hands on you before he died. He vested you with the power of Shaftal.”
Karis raised her gaze and said to Norina, “Now may I speak? I think she is under a misapprehension.”
They waited rather long for Norina to calculate a grudging answer. “Yes.”
“When Harald died, I was the only earth witch in Shaftal. They found me and brought me to him at the last moment of his life. As he died, he dumped his load of power into me. I did not know what was happening, and it was done without my consent. After it was done, and could not be undone, my unworthiness was discovered. It became apparent to everyone that Harald could not have intended to make me his successor, but only to use me as a receptacle.”
“By the nine gods!” Zanja turned to Norina. “For fifteen years Shaftal has been in turmoil–”
Norina said quietly, “Despite having been so foully treated, Karis serves Shaftal with more honor and consistency than anyone thought possible.”
It was a statement amazing in its sincerity, for Zanja had come to think that Norina admired and respected nobody. Even Karis looked rather surprised.
Zanja said, “I mean no disrespect, but I don’t see how.”
“She accepts obscurity, she chooses not to exercise her significant powers, she resists the lure of smoke as much as she can, she lives when sometimes her life is unendurable, and someday she will pass on the power she carries, and give Shaftal a G’deon.“
Shaken, chastened, Zanja could scarcely think of a response. So this was how a woman so dishonored might reclaim her honor and even be a hero. Yet the tragedy of Karis’s life made her own tragedies seem almost ordinary. She said, “How can I help her?”