Masters of Fantasy Part 29

down, and finished the day's ch.o.r.es, one wearing week after the next.

When she went to the well, the desertfolk watched her. Their wise eyes surely read the fact she was

bearing long before the first bulge strained her waistline. Once, a wizened matriarch grasped at her sleeve and gave warning in broken dialect.

"Dearie, the spirit you carry makes herself heard. She very well could draw the wrong sort of notice,

with our world the more sorrowful for it."

Meiglin fled, her buckets abandoned. No voluminous ap.r.o.n or unbelted s.h.i.+ft could shelter her for much

longer. Once Tawbas noticed, she would be turned out, with no place to go, and no family name to grant her a stay of protection.

Yet before that momentous crisis could break, the unborn child herself attracted the eyes of an outside

awareness. A party of three Koriani enchantresses ventured into Sanpas.h.i.+r, cloaked head to foot in their rich purple mantles, and the secrecy of their order. They traveled without escort, and ate in the common room, all to themselves in one corner. Meiglin felt their rapt gaze as she swept and fetched soup. Even through walls, she was made aware of their piercing, unnatural interest. Retreat to the stable failed to shake their spelled touch. These women with their uncanny arts had not visited the tavern by chance.

Meiglin shed tears in a mare's dusty mane, unable to shake looming dread. Power had found her. The

gifts of her lineage were too brilliant to mask, and her straits left her desperately vulnerable.

Through the blinding heat of the late afternoon, the elder enchantress drew Tawbas aside and tried to buy Meiglin's service.

By then, Meiglin kneaded fresh dough in the kitchen. She heard the low-voiced exchange nonetheless,

caught up in somnolent reverie.

"Your serving girl has fey blood, were you made aware when you took her in?" The senior with the red bands of rank on her sleeves went on to disclose the bald truth. "She dreams with the voice of a prophet."

Tawbas had not known. Nor was he at ease to find he had sheltered a clan foundling with errant talent.

The old woman conferred amid a rustle of silk robes. "We can pay, and quite well, for the privilege of taking the chit into Koriani fosterage."

Plainspoken Tawbas seemed lost for words, but not to the point of grasping the offer dishonestly. "She's

not my kin, but only a hireling. In fairness, Meiglin should speak for herself."

Summoned forthwith, and granted the courtesy of a private room for the interview, Meiglin stood under

the austere scrutiny of the sisterhood of enchantresses. The women measured her from under their hoods with the covetous interest of vultures.

They wasted no breath. "Your child will be born a mage-gifted girl. Come with us, take an initiate's oath

with our order, and you can bear her with honor, in safety."

"And then?" Meiglin asked, uncertain and frightened. "What would become of us, after?"

The enchantresses stirred, as though touched by a breeze. The youngest of them offered answer. "Your

daughter would be raised by the order, with all of her gifts given nurture. You are past the age to be trained to our arts, a sad loss, but not beyond salvage. Your life as a dedicate would be well spent in charitable service to humanity."

Meiglin met those unswerving, stony eyes, and found them darkened with secrets. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Initiates cannot be mothers," their senior admitted with arid impatience. "Our vows require us to

renounce ties to family. Join us, and you and your child will never want. But your lives, by our custom,

must be separate."

Ripped by formless doubt, as inflamed by headstrong will as she had been on the night she lay wanton under the moonlight, Meiglin straightened. "No. Keep your fee. I'll take my chances with Tawbas."

"He must turn you out," the crone warned, set back and sharply displeased. "Our scryers have already foreseen that future. It's a miserable, short life in the brothels of Innish, and no lot to inflict on a daughter who's sure to inherit the gifts of your bloodline."

"No," Meiglin stated, and then, "no," again, to seal her adamant rejection.

The Koriathain stood. Before they could move, or lock the closed door, Meiglin ducked past, her heart pounding. She would not turn back. The mere thought scared her white. She had experienced such

jagged panic before: the same avarice had glittered in the eyes of the madam who had sold out her mother to bountymen.

"Girl!" snapped the cook, as Meiglin bolted through the kitchen. "Are you brainless? Would you spit in

contempt at the only chance you'll ever have at salvation?"

"I'll not live in oath-bound confinement!" Meiglin plunged through the side door, clambered over the

midden, and fled at reckless speed across the baked earth of the hen yard. She slammed the wicket gate, wrung breathless as the sun blazed down on her uncovered head, and her composure finally shattered.

She stumbled, blindly sobbing, and collided headfirst into the arms of a stranger.

"You've no wish to take vows as a Koriani witch? Truly, my colleagues thought you might not." The old

man smelled of wild herbs and wood smoke, as though he had slept in his robes by a fire out in the open.

His manner reflected astringent delight as he set her back on her feet. "If you like, we could make that the grounds for a friendly conversation."

Meiglin gasped. Released from a touch of such subtlety, she scarcely felt discomposed, she blotted her eyes, and regarded the being who addressed her with wry invitation.

"That depends on what you want." She raked tumbled hair from her face, unsettled enough to stay wary.

"Have I acted disreputable?" The old man looked chagrinned. "In strict fact, young mistress, your will binds mine. Any words we exchange depend on what you want, lastborn daughter of s'Dieneval."

Struck still, Meiglin stared. "Who are you?" she whispered. But the uncanny reach of his presence spoke for him. Without asking, she knew: this was no desert elder before her, although his brown, crinkled skin and salt hair lent him the same air of earth-chiseled dignity. His clothes were a tinker's, loomed from faded wool, and the lavender-gray mantle rolled on his back seemed to hold his scanty possessions. Nonetheless, he was no f.e.c.kless wanderer. Meiglin's skin p.r.i.c.kled before the awareness that those quiet, pale eyes looked straight through her.

Here stood living power, a force of pent stillness masked over in gentleness that could, if it moved, s.h.i.+ft the world.

"You come from the Fellows.h.i.+p," Meiglin said in blanched shock.

The Sorcerer raised amused eyebrows. "Did you expect less?" His eyes surveyed her, thoughtful, their tawny depths mild as sunlight struck through the shallows of a brook. "We are our own emissaries. As you wish, you may call me Ciladis."

Meiglin measured that statement, still taken aback by his unprepossessing appearance. Fellows.h.i.+p Sorcerers had made the first kings, were the power behind the compact that bound the clan forefathers

into Paravian service. The blood heritage she had refused to acknowledge could not be evaded before such as he.

Meiglin stood dumbstruck, scarcely able to think.

Still gentle, he broke the silence for her. "Shall I give you the truth that the witches withheld? You will give birth to the child of a prophecy. In sorrow, I must tell you, the choice upholding that burden is great. Already, your unborn daughter is fatherless."

As though the firm ground had dissolved underfoot, Meiglin trembled, the pain a bright arrow struck through her. The name of the boy she had loved had not mattered. One night, he had touched her. Now, all her days, her sorrow must endure, a grief that would never be partnered. "He's lost so soon?"

The Sorcerer's hands caught and steadied her, then guided her unbalanced steps toward the shade. "Last

night, he pa.s.sed over. Your dream did not lie. Beside you, my Fellows.h.i.+p mourns for him."

Meiglin permitted herself to be set down on the stone wall that cut the stiff breeze off the desert. "The Mistwraith will triumph," she whispered, bereft.

The Sorcerer could not change that desolate fact. "Yet even defeat does not mean we are lost. The future could hold a last chance of reprieve, one spark upon which to build hope. The royal lineage of Shand is not ended. Because of your courage, a successor remains. She's the daughter you're carrying, Meiglin."

Hands closed over the swell of her womb, Meiglin found herself desperately shaking.

Ciladis' sure fingers laced over her own. "Here." His clasp affirmed what she had known all along, that this one precious life could become the lynchpin that hung the world's destiny.

"There's more," said the Sorcerer, as though his quizzical gaze tracked her thoughts. "Your child also

bears the blood of s'Dieneval, a line that has served at the right hand of kings for more than a thousand years. That's a rather hair-raising legacy. In fact, she's twice endowed with precocious talent, a fix that could drive my six colleagues to fits, and bedevil her future descendents."