Mairae had been true to her promise ten years ago. A healer priest had travelled to Oralyn to care for Auraya’s mother. Leiard could hardly continue treating Ma-Dyer, so Auraya had sent him a note thanking him for his help and explaining it was no longer needed.
Despite the healer priest’s attention, Auraya’s mother had grown sicker. At the same time Auraya had learned through her studies that healer priests did not have half the skill or knowledge that Dreamweavers possessed. She realized that by causing Leiard’s treatments to be replaced by those of a healer priest she had effectively doomed her mother to an earlier, more painful death.
Her time in Jarime had also shown her how deeply Circlians despised and distrusted Dreamweavers. She asked careful questions of her teachers and fellow priests and soon came to the conclusion that she could not openly arrange for Leiard or any other Dreamweaver to treat her mother again. She would meet resistance from her superiors if she did and she did not have the authority to order the healer priest home. So she had to arrange it surreptitiously.
She had suggested in a letter to her father that her mother exaggerate her symptoms in order to convince everyone she was close to death. In the meantime, her father ventured into the forest to ask Leiard if he would resume his former treatment. The Dreamweaver had agreed. When Auraya received the news that her mother was dying, she suggested to the healer priest that he return to Jarime. He had done all he could.
Leiard’s treatment had revived her mother, as she’d hoped. Her mother had played down her miraculous recovery, staying in the house and seeing few visitors—which was her inclination anyway.
I was so sure this would stand against me being Chosen. I wanted so much to be a White, but I couldn’t make myself believe that the Dreamweavers are bad or that I had done anything wrong. The law against using a Dreamweaver’s services is ridiculous. The plants and other remedies Leiard uses are not good or evil depending on whether a heathen or believer uses them. I haven’t seen anything to convince me that Dreamweavers, in general, deserve to be hated or distrusted.
Yet the gods still chose me. What am I to make of that? Does this mean they are willing to tolerate Dreamweavers now? She felt a thrill of hope. Do they want Circlians to accept Dreamweavers too? Am I meant to bring this about?
The feeling faded and she shook her head. Why would they do that? Why would they show any tolerance for people who do not follow them and discourage others from doing so? More likely I will be told to keep my sympathies to myself and do my job.
Why did that bother her? Why should she feel any sympathy for the members of a cult that she did not belong to? Was it simply because she still felt a debt of gratitude to Leiard for all that he had taught her, and for helping her mother? If that were so, it made sense that she would be concerned for his well-being, but not that she was concerned for Dreamweavers she had never met.
It’s the thought of all the healing knowledge that would be lost if the Dreamweavers no longer existed, she told herself. I haven’t seen Leiard in ten years. If I’m concerned about him, it is probably only because my mother’s life depends on him.
Taking all the letters out of the compartment, she placed them in a silver bowl. She held one up, drew magic to herself and sent it out as a little spark. A flame snapped into life, then ate its way down the parchment. When it had nearly reached her fingers she dropped the letter back into the bowl and picked up another.
One by one the letters burned. As she worked she wondered if the gods were watching. I arranged for a Dreamweaver to treat my mother. I won’t willingly end that arrangement. Nor will I make it publicly known. If the gods disapprove, they will let me know.
Dropping the last burning corner of parchment into the bowl, she stepped back and watched it turn to ash. She felt better. Holding onto that feeling, she returned to her bedroom and lay down.
Now, maybe, I can get some sleep. The cliffs of Toren were high, black and dangerous. During storms the sea flung itself against the rock wall as if determined to batter it down. Even on quiet nights the water appeared to resent the presence of the natural barrier, foaming where it touched rock. But if this war between land and water was leading to a victory, it was coming too slowly for mortal eyes to guess the winner.
In the distant past, many watercraft had become casualties of this battle. The black cliffs were difficult to see most nights and were a hidden peril if the moon was obscured by cloud. More than a thousand years ago, when the lighthouse had been built, the shipwrecks had stopped.
Made from the same rock as the cliff wall it topped, the round stone walls of the tower were resisting time and weather. The wooden interior, however, had succumbed to rot and neglect long ago, leaving only a narrow stone stair curving up the inside of the wall. At the top was a room floored with a huge circular slab of rock through which a hole had been carved. The walls built upon this slab had suffered worse; only the arches still remained. The roof had fallen away years ago.
Once the center of the room had been occupied by a floating ball of light so bright that it would blind anyone foolish enough to stare at it for more than a few moments. Sorcerers had maintained it, keeping the sea safe for centuries.
Emerahl, wise woman and sorceress, was the only human visitor to that room these days. Years ago, when clearing some of the rubble that filled the hollow structure, she had found one of the masks those long-dead sorcerers had worn. The eyeholes were filled with dark gems to filter the dazzling light they had fed with magic.
Now the lighthouse stood crumbling and unused and ships must judge the passage past the black cliffs without its help. As Emerahl reached the topmost room she paused to catch her breath. Placing a wrinkled hand on the column of an arch, she looked out at the sea. Tiny specks of light drew her eye. Ships always waited until daylight before navigating the passage between the cliffs and the islands.
Do they know this place exists? she wondered. Do people still tell stories of the light that burned here? She snorted softly. If they do, I doubt they know it was built by a sorcerer at the bidding of Tempre, the fire god. They probably don’t even remember Tempre’s name. It’s only a few centuries since he died, but that’s plenty of time for mortals to forget what life was like before the War of the Gods.
Did anyone know the names of the dead gods these days? Were there scholars who studied the subject? Perhaps in the cities. Ordinary men and women, struggling to make the best of their short lives, did not care about such things.
Emerahl looked down at the cluster of houses further along the shore. As she did a movement closer to the lighthouse caught her eye. She groaned quietly in dismay. It had been weeks since anyone had dared to visit her. A thin girl dressed in a ragged tunic scrambled up the slope.
Letting out a long sigh, Emerahl looked at the houses again and thought back to when the first people had arrived. A few men had found their way up the cliffs from a single boat and camped in the area. Smugglers, she had guessed. They had erected makeshift huts, dismantling and rebuilding them several times over the first months until they found an area sheltered enough from the regular storms for the huts to remain standing. They had approached her once, thinking to rob her, and she had taught them to respect her desire to be left alone.
The men had left and returned regularly, and soon the single boat was accompanied by another, then more. One day a fishing boat arrived full of cargo and women. Soon there was the thin cry of a baby at night, then another. Babes became children and some lived to become adults. The girls became mothers too young, and many did not survive the experience. All villagers were lucky to live into their forties.