ZYGRADON (15 page)

"But I don't understand why you would do it. If you could. Can you?"

Graddon's mouth dropped open at the boy's questions. He shook his head and
walked away, across the nearly empty common room to the brazier full of cherry-red
coals, turned and stared at Mrillis and scratched his head. Then he came back and stood,
big fists jammed into his hips, frowning down at the boy.

Le'esha had been as still as stone all this time. Finally, a grin brightened her face
and she tugged on Graddon's sleeve to get him to sit again.

"I warned you, did I not?" she said.

"You did," the big man rumbled. "Have you trained him to look inside a man's
thoughts and disinter his fears?"

"We are training him to think deeply and see clearly. A far rarer talent, I think."
She slid her arm around Mrillis' shoulders. "Yes, my lad, Graddon hid his movements. But
not from me, specifically. The Nameless One is his enemy."

"Why?"

"My visions." Graddon dropped down on the bench they shared. He sighed and
closed his eyes and his broad shoulders slumped. "I am nearly two centuries old, boy. I
have been helping the battle against the Nameless One since he turned to blood magic. I
know more about him than he knows about himself--much good it has done us until
recently. My scrolls hold hundreds of visions, many of which have yet to be fulfilled. The
Nameless One fears they deal with him, his downfall, or a clue to his final, permanent
defeat."

"He wants to know what they say, so he can prevent them?" Mrillis
guessed.

"He wants to pervert them to serve his return to power," the seer growled, but
with only half the energy the boy had heard on other occasions. "What frightens me
more is that he could try to imprison me, bend me to serve his will, in an attempt to not
only stop the future I have seen but reshape it to serve him. That is worse than killing
me, because yes, we can change small things, reshape small events in our future by what
we do now. I would much rather he tried to kill me."

"He can't kill you. We won't let him!" Mrillis leaped to his feet and grasped
Le'esha's hand. "Will we, Lady?"

"Do not fear, lad," Graddon said, taking hold of Mrillis' other hand before
Le'esha could respond. "When you have lived so long in the Estall's service, death loses its
cold bitterness. There are regrets, yes, for those I will leave behind, but I am weary. I
want to rest. Soon, I will rest. I know that, but I do not know whether it will be in
death, or a long sleep, to wait until I am needed once more. Only the Estall
knows."

"But there's so much you still have to teach me. Teach us. You have to teach
Ceera to make the bowl." Mrillis caught his breath at the glance that passed between
Graddon and Le'esha. The Queen of Snows shrugged and a crooked smile flicked across
her face.

"This is how the Estall has made him," was all she said.

"A bowl, eh?" the seer said with a
harrumph
like a grumpy old man.
"What kind of bowl? Made of what? How big? What designs on it?"

"A bowl made of stars," Mrillis half-whispered. He shivered, chilled as if ice filled
his stomach, though he stood close to the brazier that spilled heat across the room. "I had
a dream. There was a sword in a bowl made of stars. Ceera held the bowl. She offered
me the sword and I gave it to a man."

"What did he look like?"

"He stood in the shadows. I didn't really see much...." The boy shook his head.
"That's why you're here, isn't it? Why you want us to learn about metal and why you're...
you're surprised, but you're happy, that we've found our
imbrose
earlier than
everyone else."

"Indeed. The enemy will not expect you to begin your training so early, even if
he suspects your identity and your place in prophecy." Graddon nodded. "A bowl made
of stars, eh? That is something even I have not tried to do."

"A bowl to hold and control the power of the stars," Le'esha whispered. "My
predecessor spoke of such a thing, in her most private journals. This is not something
Ceera will make solely with her hands, but with her heart and soul."

"Then let us teach her the principles, so she understands with her flesh and
bone, and can then do it with her spirit." The big man nodded, staring into an unseen
distance for so long, Mrillis wondered if he was about to have another vision. Finally, a
huge grin split his face. "To bed with you, boy. You have new lessons in the morning. If
your greatest accomplishment is to be known as the one who guarded and guided Ceera
of the Bowl of Stars, it will be a worthy thing. You will learn, so you can teach her the
things she cannot learn now. Are you ready?"

"I'll do whatever you want me to," Mrillis said, and pressed his clenched fist
over his heart as a vow.

* * * *

Graddon taught Ceera and Mrillis with stories, how to bring images from their
minds into the metal and clay and wood they worked with. He taught them
mold-making and took them to the Stronghold's craftsmen, to learn about melting copper and
tin, gold and silver to pour into molds for pins and the bases for bowls and cups. Before
he left, he gave specific instructions for Ceera's training to the Mistress of Artisans. He
also gifted Ceera with her own tool kit, with many sizes of hammers and awls and stone
bowls for melting metals, to fit her hands as she grew up. To Mrillis, he gave his own
inkpot and the writing kit he carried in a wide pouch at his belt, and commanded him to
record every vision, every dream, even the nonsensical ones.

"Because who knows when something that makes no sense today will be the
key to a mystery many decades in the future?" he said, and rested his hand on the boy's
head in blessing.

Not until Graddon was half a day away from the Stronghold did Mrillis realize
why the man gave him his own writing kit. He spoke to no one of his fear, not even
Le'esha, because if Graddon did not want to be found, how could she send anyone to
guard him?

That fall, seekers went to Whispering Vale to inquire of the seer. When word
reached the Stronghold that Graddon could not be found, Mrillis knew he had been
right. Whether Graddon had been caught by the Nameless One and taken prisoner, or
killed, or had gone to his long rest under the Estall's protection, no one knew.

The boy went to the highest point of the Stronghold, the place where Le'esha
had waited and seen images of his future on the night he was born. He brought the
writing kit with him and opened it for the first time, to compose a letter to Graddon.
Instead, he found a letter from Graddon for him.

Short, written in big letters so it was easy to read, even in the dim light of an
unnaturally calm evening.

If you would find me and find my fate, you must first find the Vale of
Lanteer. You will neither see it nor touch it nor know it is there until there is need. Do
not wake the Sleeper, but bring others to join in well-deserved rest. Do not enter until
you have sore need of it, in a time of blood and fire. When images of sorrow turn to
hope. When hope turns to sorrow. When one who cannot live unless he rests requires all
the world be changed.

* * * *

The winter Mrillis turned twelve was bitter and cruel, so there were no more
games in the snow during lulls. The darkness that came with storms lasted for days at a
time, long stretches of howling winds and sitting in dimly lit rooms reading by the light
of lamps, trying to stay warm and cheerful. Those sleepy, surreal times were broken by
intervals where the entire Stronghold rushed about in frantic haste to help rescue
survivors of ships foolish enough to travel up the coast to visit the Queen of Snows. The
coast was not kind to unwary or unwelcome travelers even during fair weather, trapping
them and devouring their ships with unexpected shallows and hidden reefs. Storms blew
up without warning to drive ships into the cliffs and against the unforgiving, pebbly
shore. That winter, sailors swore the rocks and reefs leaped up from the icy water to eat
their ships and drag them down to the seabed.

Mrillis and Ceera learned to speak into each other's minds that winter. It
happened quite innocently and quietly.

One morning, he came as usual into the long healing room that smelled of
steam and fever sweat overlaid with herbs and wet linen. His arms were loaded with the
morning porridge pot and a stack of bowls and spoons. Ceera sat by the bedside of
Canrif, a messenger who had come from the Warhawk. He was here in the healing room
instead of the guest quarters because he tried to climb the cliffs to find the Queen of
Snows, instead of waiting for the weather to clear so he could approach through the Mist
Gates. Canrif had fallen and broke his skull and half his ribs. When he didn't suffer
delirium from blood loss and lying in a snowbank for hours, he was in agony from his
battered flesh and bones.

Ceera saw Mrillis enter the room and thought about asking him to bring her the
flask of nightflower oil, to soothe the sufferer. Mrillis heard her thought and didn't realize
she hadn't spoken. He put down his burden and brought her the flask before she even
opened her mouth.

Le'esha was pleased when the children reported this development to her. She
taught them to share their inner strength and combine their
imbrose
, which
could only occur between minds and souls that touched without effort. Like any other
Rey'kil child, they had already learned the discipline needed to heal themselves from
minor cuts and burns. Now, they could share energy for larger challenges. When they
grew older, they would be able to take power from the Threads to communicate
through the Threads and to heal others.

Le'esha saw nothing wrong in teaching them disciplines and theories they would
need far in the future. As she told her ladies when they protested, and as she told the
children, it was a crime
not
to prepare them if they were able to understand
and their gifts were ready to be trained--even at the cost of depriving them of the
carefree years of their childhood.

By the time spring crept across the icy landscape, Mrillis and Ceera could speak
into each other's mind in words. Small words. Images were far easier to send. They
treated their discovery as a game. Le'esha and her ladies let the children perceive it as a
game, even when they tested their distance and accuracy.

On the day before Mrillis had to return to Wynystrys, Ceera sent him a detailed
image and a message of five sentences, from the innermost rooms of the Stronghold to a
ridge where he stood, half a league beyond the canyons that surrounded the
Stronghold.

* * * *

That night, the tunnel leading to Wynystrys crumbled. The magic that bored
through the bedrock of the continent, supported the stone ceiling and twisted time,
drained away like the juice from a smashed grape. Mrillis, Ceera and all the older
children woke from dreams filled with flames that reeked of blood and froze them with
utter darkness.

Le'esha gathered her warriors and sent the boys away in all directions, each one
guarded by three and four warriors, male and female. Mrillis was the first to go, riding
due south instead of west to Wynystrys. Disguised as a servant boy in the livery of the
Warhawk, he rode with four messengers from Afrin who had come to Le'esha for advice
and healing potions against the expected spring fevers.

Though he understood that the attack had to have come from the Nameless
One and was an attempt to find the boy of prophecy--him--Mrillis rode out too excited
to be afraid. The boys would all eventually arrive on Wynystrys, and he devoutly hoped
none of them would be attacked in an effort to find him. After a winter holed up in the
Stronghold, cramming his head with knowledge and learning discipline, it was time for
an adventure. After all, he was only twelve years old, and the future was a long way
away.

Mrillis spent the first few days of the journey maintaining contact with Ceera,
showing her the trails the small company rode down, and the villages they passed. Ceera
had never gone beyond the canyons that surrounded the Stronghold. Mrillis felt a flicker
of concern that perhaps he was doing something wrong by showing the outside world to
the ten-year-old. Then he reasoned that Le'esha had to know they would communicate,
and she would have told him if it was forbidden.

Too soon, though, Mrillis traveled beyond the faintest contact with Ceera. He
didn't regret it as much as he thought, because the growing effort made his head ache.
Besides, the weather was too beautiful, the adventure too new and exciting to let him be
in a foul mood. He would be able to see Lyon and the Warhawk before they mustered
the troops across Lygroes to prepare for the Encindi raids that would come with spring.
He would talk about his journey with the other boys and compare their adventures
when they all gathered on Wynystrys, and no one would tease him about being the
Queen of Snows' protected, pampered favorite.

He had told no one on Wynystrys but Breylon about linking with Ceera. Mrillis
couldn't quite decide if it was because the boys wouldn't believe him, or because they
would mock him for having a bond with a mere girl-child. He didn't feel any shame; he
liked Ceera more than most of the boys his age. She listened and she thought long before
she said something. She didn't rage over inconsequential things or break other's
possessions or play nasty tricks on children who were younger than her.

Mrillis put those thoughts aside and concentrated on learning the landscape, the
landmarks, the sounds, colors, smells and the feeling of power moving through the land.
When he was older, he would travel throughout Lygroes, using his talents wherever
Breylon and Le'esha sent him. He wanted to be able to ride anywhere and everywhere
on Lygroes, without asking for directions or a map.

The thought of learning Lygroes from northern shore to the southern tip,
traveling the rocky cliffs of the west and the black sandy shores of the east, thrilled
Mrillis. At night, he lay in his blankets and listened to Haster, the stargazer, telling stories
about the stars. Every evening, as the stars rose above the eastern horizon, Haster gave
him short lessons on how to find his way using the stars.