'Just a reminder, of who you once were,' Xeliath explained. She gave him a stern look, studying his reaction at the torn, dirty clothes. Suddenly she broke out in a girlish smile and skipped over to plant a kiss on his lips. Isak gasped in surprise. The sweet scent of her skin was almost overwhelming. Instinctively he reached out and slipped his hands around her waist, but she skipped back and the smooth skin of her hips slid out of his fragile grip. Now her face bore a look of pure delight.
'Ah, it's been a while since I could do that.' She danced over to a mossy rise and sat. Isak scarcely noticed that he'd not seen the rise earlier.
'What- Ah, why?'
'Why has it been a while? Well that's your fault, but the story is a long one.' From her manner, Isak realised that Morghien had been correct in her age. She was tall as any white-eye, with a healthy strength in those long slender limbs, but hardly past girlhood, for all her remarkable beauty.
'But I've never met you,' Isak protested as he struggled past the memory of her lips.
'No excuse.' Her tone was playful, but she clearly meant it. 'I had kissed quite a number of pretty young men before someone decided to make you the Saviour-'
'Now wait,' Isak snapped. 'I'm no Saviour and I don't intend to be.'
'What you intend has nothing to do with it!' With the snap in her voice came a distant rumble of thunder. Isak immediately realised that the two were linked, and that they both could rage much closer. Even female white-eyes had a temper bubbling under the surface.
Xeliath ignored the interruption. 'What others intend is the matter at hand. Unfortunately for all of us, you've become a nexus for those intentions.'
‘What are you talking about? I've been given no quest by the Gods.
Carel always says I've got the piety of a dead ice-cobra. Just why do people think I've been chosen to lead a crusade, or whatever other damn stupid idea they have?'
‘And therein lies the problem.'
Isak cocked his head at the strange girl. For such a young woman she was amazingly confident and assured. 'How did you learn Farlan anyway?' That was one of the things nagging at him about this girclass="underline" her accent was not just excellent, but native.
'Can we please keep to the matter at hand? If you need an answer, I didn't, I can't. I'm speaking directly to your thoughts. Whatever you hear is how your mind chooses to represent those thoughts. This is just a dream, Isak, your dream. The conversation is happening, but this place doesn't exist.'
'Then how?'
'I'm not sure whether I should tell you, but I don't suppose you'll pay attention until you get an answer. You were Chosen last year; I already had been. Lady Amavoq came to me in a dream. I wasn't made Krann or given a title, but my gift was rather special. Lady Amavoq told me to watch over you. I was intended to be your bride and royal assassin.'
'What was the gift? Why only intended?'
The gift was the Skull of Dreams, the one owned by Aryn Bwr's queen. That's how I'm here: other than warded minds, I can enter most people's dreams – and once there, I can kill them. As for intended, well, things went astray there, but it's only been since I met Morghien that I begin to understand why.
'I'm now a prisoner in my dreams. When I accepted the Skull, my fate was entwined with yours – but unfortunately, you have many fates… and none. Either way, it was too much: it broke me. Oh Gods, did it hurt – you've no idea just how much something like that could hurt.' She stopped for a moment, her pain showing in her face. Isak didn't know how to respond; he felt guilty for something that he knew nothing about.
Xeliath shuddered. 'For a moment, an instant, I saw a thousand futures ahead of me. The Skull stopped my mind being completely destroyed; it cushioned the blow, somehow, but it could do nothing to stop me screaming. I looked like I'd been struck down by madness. She sighed. 'My family believe I have been called as a prophet. Now I'm kept confined and drugged.'
'And this is my fault?' Isak couldn't keep the incredulous edge from his voice, but Xeliath gave no sign that she had noticed.
'In a way. When I was following your mind, I found Morghien, passing close by, and I entered his dreams out of curiosity. The man o many spirits: he is well named. I found more answers than I'd expected,
and answers that I had not expected.' She sighed. 'There were so many
prophecies about the Age of Fulfilment – so many hands trying to affect the future – that it looks like they may all have failed.'
'How? You're not making any sense.' He was beginning to feel stupid: should it be this hard to grasp?
She smiled and patted the ground beside her. He sat, feeling the soft ground give slightly under his weight, and Xeliath leaned against him, slender and frail, but curiously warming on his skin.
'You know about prophets, yes? That they speak in riddles and everything has to be deciphered? Well, they don't see the future, they see what is possible, and then those visions are translated according to the viewpoint of the scholars who study the prophet.'
'So the scholars could be lying?'
'If only it were that simple.' Xeliath gave a rueful chuckle and took his hand, patting it affectionately before interlacing her fingers with his and squeezing them. 'Sometimes they are correct, sometimes not. But you must remember that there's a power in words, there's a power in belief. Men work towards what they believe – Gods are sustained partly by the belief and devotion of their followers. You should know that words can affect the Land – whether it's logical or not, we see the Land through words, stories and beliefs. The course of history itself can be shaped by these words. You might want to tell your father that. Honestly, giving a white-eye such a name… it just pushed you further from the intended path. He might find himself explaining his decision at the Gates of Death to an annoyed deity.'
'I didn't pick my name… and I still don't get what is this to do with me.' Now he sounded plaintive.
'You're at the heart of it all. "Saviour" is just a name, but it's loaded
with enough power to affect those who are associated with it. Names
can be used by men and Gods towards their own ends. You've become
the centre of the prophecies of the Saviour, whether you like it or not,
but the laws of magic are not the same as those of nature.
‘Everyone with any power has tried to influence your birth, to
create the man they needed. They failed. Between them they gave
you the power to change the Land around you, to bend fate to your will, but they forgot the difference between nature and magic: when forces of nature meet, either one wins outright, or they cancel each other out. When forces of magic meet, they corrupt and change each other.
'The result is that you have the power without the desire: no dreams of conquest, no grand schemes, just an emptiness of ambition. Destiny has twisted about you and snapped.'
Isak took a deep breath. He had no idea what questions he should
be asking. His mind was blank.
'I- How can 1 know you're telling me the truth?'
Xeliath smiled, understanding his suspicion. 'Well, first of all, you
recognise my voice don't you? 1 was watching that first night in the
Tower – though I didn't know where you were, 1 could feel your soul
entwined with my own. I've been with you since the beginning of this new life of yours.'
Isak's eyes widened in recollection and he opened his mouth to speak, but Xeliath placed a finger to his lips and hushed him. Then she put her hand on his chest and pressed her fingers against the scar there. 'And 1 know you can feel it within yourself. You've been Chosen, yet you hardly care, do you? It's not affected you: whatever sense of purpose you feel comes from your intelligence, not your instincts.