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Somehow, the instant she touched his shoulder he knew something was wrong. Turning to her, he said, “What is it?”
She reached for her bow, then stopped. “There are people ahead.”
Nomar’s eyes narrowed. “You are sure?”
“Yes.” As she said the single word, she called up her powers, which quickly rose and covered her hands with shimmering blue light. With her next thought, she called Yar back.
Wait! Hold back your powers. No need is there for them, Jalil commanded silently.
She kept her powers burning. “Jalil says they are not aggressive.”
“Is that so, old man?” Nomar challenged.
“What I sense, what I see, is not hostility, but interest.”
“I am blocked yet you can sense them?”
“Yes,” he said aloud, then silently, Whoever the woman is, her abilities are not strong in that way, yet ... very strong in other ways. I sense her through the block. You can too, if you try. But such is unnecessary. She is different. It is almost as if she is ... an ancient, but not.
“We shall see.” Her ability to discern the truth had not brought any alarm with Jalil’s words, so she had no choice but to accept them.
Concentrating, Ailish tested the block. When she pushed against it, something strange happened—she was reading the woman inside the woman’s own block, which should have been impossible.
The woman’s thoughts were as crystal clear as were her own, and she found herself in wonder at both the simplicity and the complexity facing her. She broke the connection and turned to Nomar.
“Sheath your sword, we have nothing to fear. Jalil is right.”
This is impossible, she told Jalil.
Impossible, no. And forget not what we spoke of just a short time before? What the Eight of the Island told me?
She did, and remembered more as well. It took her a moment to recall it, but when she did, the words came flooding back.
‘No one survives the Frozen Mountains,’ she had said to The Speaker.
So powerful ... so far reaching are your abilities to know this?
It is common knowledge.
Know you anyone who has lost someone to these mountains? she had challenged Ailish.
Your question is meaningless. It is common knowledge.
How know you it is not a legend created a thousand years ago?
Legend or not, what purpose could it serve? Ailish had demanded.
Ah ... That is the real question, is it not? What purpose, indeed, Ailish?
“She said, that is the real question.”
Nomar’s head jerked toward her. “Who said that?”
She shook her head. “A conversation I had with The Speaker of the Eight.” She paused for a moment, then shrugged. “It was about you, and how I did not want you to come and sacrifice your life because no one survived the Frozen Mountains. She asked me how I knew no one survived these mountains other than legend or rumor. I could not give her a true answer. Now I understand what she was telling me. There is life here. I think the legends were created to keep everyone from coming here. How and why, I think we are about to discover.”
I believe you are correct, Ailish. The why is simple. They did not want us—the Dark Masters —to know there was life here, Jalil offered.
There is more to it. That might be one reason; I believe there is a bigger reason, but I know not what it is, I sensed it from she who I just touched.
And then Yar was back, walking between she and Nomar.
It took them less than five minutes to reach the two people who waited within the opening of what appeared to be yet another of the mysterious caverns. The two were a strange sight. An elderly man, a mid-aged woman, and neither taller than a twelve-year-old child.
Surrounding the woman was an aura of purples and yellows and blues and greens in such a breathtaking magnificence, Ailish’s breath caught in her throat. She was stunned. Only twice before had she seen something like this. The two women were her daughters. This was a Woman of Power, without any doubt, and something more.
The first physical thing she noticed was the woman’s hair. Long, yet tightly curled. Her skin was a pale brown, her eyes brow-less, and of an unusual color not unlike the stalks of freshly stripped grain. When she raised a hand in greeting, Ailish saw her hand had six fingers.
The man next to her could have rivaled Jalil in looking old. Yet his eyes were alive, and he stood as straight as a young man. His hair was pure white, and hung to his shoulders. He was bearded, and that too was as white as the snow and ice covering the mountains.
“Welcome,” the woman offered when they stopped a dozen feet before her.
Ailish and Nomar dismounted at the same time, and walked toward the pair. Yar walked next to Ailish, his eyes never leaving the woman’s face. When they reached the two, Ailish nodded to the woman. “I am Ailish of Morvene.”
The woman looked at the rantor, then up at Ailish, and offered a hesitant smile. “I am Haliled, daughter of Hannah, granddaughter of Hassadah, and Woman of the Village. This is Ziza, son of Divad. What is ... that?” she asked, pointing to Yar.
Before she could answer, Jalil sent a thought ripping through her mind.
It is true!
The Woman of the Village stiffened. She stared past Ailish and Nomar to the litter.
“Who lies there?” she asked.
Fear him not, for he is not of the darkness, she said silently.
The woman turned to the man and spoke in a strange language. The man’s shoulders drew back, his eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward, his hand going to the knife at his side.
“Who?” she asked even as Nomar sidestepped to block the small man.
“Turn me around. Let them see me,” Jalil called to Nomar.
When he did as the old Master asked, the Village Elder’s eyes widened, and he drew the knife.
Jalil held his hand to his heart and said something, and then repeated it, but in a different language. Ailish could not make out what he’d said.
The man stopped moving and looked back to the woman. “Speak,” she told Jalil.
You have been expecting us—
“With words,” she snapped.
“You have been expecting us,” he repeated. “We must go to a place within the mountain of two peaks.”
The woman looked away from him to Ailish. “One of the Circle of Afzal, one of the despised ones you have with you. A strong Woman of Power you are: why do you defile our mountains?”
Ailish reached out and took the woman’s hand. “May I?” she asked in a soft voice.
When Haliled hesitantly nodded, Ailish used her free hand to open her cloak, and then pressed the woman’s hand to her chest, exactly above her heart. Holding it there, she built a picture of the twin-peaked mountain in her mind. See within my mind. We seek this place.
Haliled’s eyes widened. She stiffened slightly, but did not remove her hand. Her eyes, soft and pale yellow, bored into hers. In that moment, Ailish realized this woman was not simply a Woman of Power, but something different and something more.
“It is not permitted,” the Woman of the Village said aloud.
Ailish frowned. “Not permitted? We have been sent.”
“Sent? By whom?”
Instead of answering, she pressed her own hand over the woman’s, locking it to her chest. “Do you sense untruth from me? Do you sense darkness in me?”
Haliled closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she said, “No. I am not sure what is happening, but to stand here and freeze without a purpose is foolish. Wait,” she said suddenly.
With her next heartbeat, the face of The Speaker wavered momentarily in her mind.
Haliled’s eyes widened, and then snapped up to Ailish’s. She withdrew her hand and said, “The day is ending. Come to our village. We will talk further of this, but in warmth.”
Aware that something important had just happened, but not sure of what, Ailish looked over her shoulder at Nomar, who nodded. “Trust them you do?”
“I do.”
“My village is a half day from here. You will be welcomed ... and fed.”
Nomar looked directly at Ailish. “And we should just accept this?” He looked at the Woman of the Village. “We are hunted by the madness and forces of darkness; we have barely escaped with our lives. We have traveled for months to reach the twin-peaked mountains. How do we know you are not deceiving us?”
“Nomar!” Ailish half-shouted.
Haliled put her hand on Ailish’s, but stared at Nomar. “I am Woman of the Village. I speak for every one of the village. My word is bond to all of my people.”
“You knew we would be here now, did you not?” she asked Haliled.
“I did, for I sensed you last night; but, expect what I found, no.” Without further words, she turned and started walking back. The Elder walked next to her.
They entered the mouth of a huge cavern to find yet another valley similar to the one they had found inside the chasm. A warm breeze washed over them.
“It is like the other cavern, but it is very different,” Nomar observed, rising on the saddle to take in what he was riding into.
Ailish did the same, and as she stood in the stirrups, she saw how enormous the cavern was. This cavern dwarfed the one by the chasm. When she gazed into the distance, she saw no end to it. Lighter than the other valley, it had the same pale haze of gray light that was everywhere in the Frozen Mountains. When she looked up, she could not find the top of the cavern. Ahead of them spread an abundance of unusual trees and shrubs: The trees were covered with pale bark and yellow leaves. The shrubs all had a yellow cast.
She closed her eyes and let her senses free. All around her, and well into the distance, rabts and other small animals scurried; but of larger animals like dar and rantors she discovered none, nor did she sense or hear any birds.
“There is a narrow road a short distance ahead. We take that.”
“Your villagers, your people, they will not attack us?” Nomar asked.
The Woman of the Village stopped and turned to him. “I have already spoken on this. What purpose would serve such an act?”
“To protect themselves. To help you.”
“What would our village fear from two such as you? Why do you insult us?”
Before Ailish could say anything, Nomar dismounted and went to the woman. He knelt before her; his head was at the same level as hers. “I apologize for my words. I sought only to make certain My Lady will not be harmed.”
She said nothing for a moment, then raised both of her six-fingered hands. “Will you permit me?”
His brows drew together for a moment before he realized what she was asking. He nodded.
Haliled placed her hands to the sides of his head, then slowly bent until their foreheads touched. When she withdrew she stared into his eyes. “I understand why you think as you do. You have had a troubled time, but you are a good man.”
She lowered her hands and stepped back. “Your desire to protect her is powerful. But no matter what you think, you need to accept one absolute: of all things in this life, the one thing you cannot protect anyone from is a prophecy.”
“A—”
“We will speak of this later. Come, we must move on to the village.”
She turned and started away, but Yar was standing there watching them. Haliled froze in place. She looked up at Ailish. “I started to ask before, what is ... that?”
Ailish smiled. “Yar is his name. He is a rantor. He is my aoutem.”
“Rantor ... Aoutem? I know not these words.”
Silently, she said, I will try to explain it, but later, yes? He will not harm you.
I sensed such before. “Come, we waste time,” she added to everyone.
“Wait,” Ailish called. “Have you kraals here?”
“I know not the word.”
Ailish leaned forward and stroked her kraal’s long neck. “Kraals are what we are riding.”
“No, like the ra ... rantor, these animals do not exist here.”
“Ride behind me. Ziza can ride behind Nomar. We will make better time.”
Nomar came over and lifted Haliled onto the saddle behind Ailish. Then he turned to at Ziza and, after mounting himself, reached a hand down to the Elder. Ziza grasped his hand and let himself be pulled up. He settled as comfortably as possible behind the large warrior.
They started off again, and a quarter mile later, turned onto the narrow road toward the village.
Ailish looked up, realizing the gray light was darkening. “How far to your village?”
“Close, two hours by foot. We will be there by full dark.”
“This ... place, even inside the mountain it is dark at night?”
Haliled laughed lightly. “Would not the question be how can there be daylight so deep within the mountain?”
Ailish nodded. “Yes, that would be more reasonable.”
“When we entered the cavern, I heard him,” she pointed at Nomar, “say this is the same as the other cavern.”
“We found another cavern, similar to this.”
“At the split of the mountains?”
“Yes, at the chasm between the mountains.”
“Within our great cavern, time and light are the same as without.”
As they moved easily along the road, the Woman of the Village leaned forward. “Your ... Yar ... You can join with it?”
“With him, yes.” Working out a way to explain the relationship, she said, “It was when I was fourteen and my body was journeying from child to woman and my abilities were growing strong, I found my first aoutem. We bonded to each other as brother and sister. Aoutems are ... They are a part of us, and we become a part of them. Yar is my fourth aoutem.”
“So different are we, yet the same we are as well.”
“Yes.” Ailish exhaled slowly as she rode, her eyes continually drinking in everything around them. Aware that the road had been descending slightly since they’d entered it, she wondered what they would find when they reached the village.
Yar, scout.
A half hour later, she sensed Yar’s push. Joining with him, she saw the village spread out ahead of him and slightly below. She realized he’d done what a hunting rantor always does, he’d gone to high ground to see better.
When she saw the village, and the way it had been created, her breath caught.
