Dabiel stood by the big fireplace in the main Hall, Buttons at her side. Elathir’s wizards gathered around them, grim and silent. Rumors of what she would tell them, and what she would ask, had spread swiftly. Outside, wind whistled around the corners of the building. There was still no rain, but a few high bands of clouds had appeared just before sunset. Dabiel had ordered the windows of the Hall shuttered. Warm golden lantern light lit the gathering, but little reached the soaring ceiling, and gloom lurked in the corners.
Larine pressed one hand into Daisy’s head and clutched Hanion’s strong hand with the other. Even though she knew what Dabiel was going to say, the Guildmaster’s words chilled her. “Friends, the Mother has given me a grim and terrible warning. Over the next few hours the Wizards’ Guild will face a challenge greater than any we’ve dealt with before. We’ll be called on to make an unimaginable sacrifice. If we refuse, the people of Elathir will die. But if we’re willing to do what the Mother asks, they’ll live.”
It was as simple as that. The fear and confusion that had filled Larine since she’d first heard the news faded, replaced by calm resolve. She was a wizard. The Mother had called her to give her life to serve the people of Tevenar. Did it really matter whether it was given over the course of years or all at once?
Dabiel described her vision. Larine imagined the immense storm spinning over the ocean, just out of sight beyond the horizon. According to the Mother, it would make landfall late tomorrow afternoon. The ship carrying the wizards who volunteered must leave at sunrise to reach the proper place in time.
Taking a deep breath, Dabiel pressed her hand hard into Button’s head. “I’ll meet with each of you in my office. You’ll tell me whether or not you wish to volunteer. Your choice will remain private. If more than thirty-one wizards offer to go, I’ll decide who to send.”
Larine flinched. She was horribly glad it was Dabiel, not her, who must choose which of her friends would live and which would die. If anyone could bear that burden without it destroying them, it was Dabiel.
But maybe no one could.
Dabiel rubbed her forehead. “You have one hour to decide. Think, pray, talk to those you love. Listen to what the Mother tells you. Not all of you will be called to sacrifice yourself. If she forbids you to go, as she forbade me, there’s no shame in that. Nor need you be ashamed if fear or even selfishness keeps you here. Don’t hesitate to say no if you have even the slightest doubt. The Mother wants only your free and fully willing service, in this as in all things.”
She raised her hand. Buttons sent a wash of the Mother’s power flowing from her palm to bathe them all in shimmering golden light. Larine lifted her face to the warm, tingling rush. It filled her with the peace and joy she’d felt each time she’d stood in the Mother’s presence.
The light faded and Dabiel dropped her hand. “May the Mother be with us all.”
The gathering slowly broke up, silence giving way to subdued murmurs. Larine turned to Hanion and their eyes met. Without a word they headed toward the stairs.
Thunder and Daisy exchanged glances. Daisy fell in beside the horse. We’re going by the midden.
Gratitude for her familiar’s understanding flooded Larine. The animals didn’t care what their bondmates did in their presence, but they respected the humans’ desire for privacy. Thank you.
The dog wagged her tail and scampered after Thunder. Larine and Hanion climbed to the third floor.
As soon as the door of the bedroom closed behind them, they were in each other’s arms. Larine clung to Hanion fiercely, trying to express with her hands and mouth and the pressure of her body all the things she had no words for. Hanion responded with equal ardor. They shed their clothes and moved to the bed, loving each other with frantic, desperate need. Larine crushed all thought, letting sensation consume her mind and body. She blocked out everything but her craving for her lover’s body and the joy of its satisfaction. This was life. This was the highest and truest expression of the Mother’s creation, the great gift she’d given her children, the glorious celebration of everything it meant to be human, to love, to be.
Afterwards, sated, she lay in Hanion’s arms, her head pillowed on his chest. If only she could freeze time, like a window fixed on some crucial detail, and preserve this moment perfect and unchanging forever.
She resented the deep rumble of his voice beneath her ear, even as she adored it. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Tears leaked from her eyes and dampened his hair. She turned her head to press her face into his skin, breathing his beloved scent. “It’s not fair.”
His arms wrapped around her, crushing her close. “No.”
Larine sniffed hard and pulled away. “The Mother can’t want to take this away from us.”
Hanion rose, went to the window, and opened the shutters. “Of course she doesn’t. She’d never ask if the alternative wasn’t much, much worse.”
Larine rummaged through the clothes she hadn’t yet had a chance to organize. She found a soft robe, put it on, and went to join him. Clouds mounded on the horizon, and the trees in the plaza below thrashed in the wind that whipped her hair, but stars still speckled the blackness overhead. For several minutes they were silent, staring into the night.
Finally Larine shivered. “We have to decide.”
“Yes.” Hanion enfolded her hands in his.
“What do you want?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I want to say no. I finally found you; I can’t lose you. I want us both to stay.”
Relief and protest flooded Larine, inextricably mixed. “Smash it, I want that, too. But we can’t. Someone has to go. Do you want to watch the ship sail away with our friends on board? Send them to die to save our lives?”
“No. But someone has to. Most of the guild will have to endure that loss. Why shouldn’t it be us?”
Larine shuddered. “I think that would be worse than going.”
“I know it will. Let others have the glory of sacrificing themselves. Dabiel said it was all right to be selfish.”
Larine stared at the dark strip of ocean visible beyond the city. Glints of white marked where breakers crashed, their foam reflecting the moonlight. “At least thirty-one of us have to go. Otherwise Elathir will be destroyed. We might all die.”
“Plenty will volunteer. Most of them don’t have as much reason to live as we do.”
She swiveled to face him, shocked. “Of course they do! We’re hardly the only ones in love. And everyone has friends, family, children—”
“So do you.”
She clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut. “He’s sixteen. He’s thriving in his apprenticeship. He doesn’t need me any more.”
“But what would losing you do to him? He resents the Wizards’ Guild as it is. Can you imagine how he’d react if he believed it responsible for your death?”
Ice gripped Larine’s heart, but she shook her head. “He’ll be fine.”
“I hope so.” Hanion didn’t pursue the point further.
But the doubts he’d raised tormented Larine. She’d tried so hard to help her son. She’d spent so many sleepless nights with worry and fear for him gnawing her stomach. She’d been afraid for so many years that his disregard for the rules would lead him down a dark path to destruction. But in the Traders’ Guild, he’d finally found a craft he loved and could pursue with enthusiasm. Over the last three years, Larine’s fears for his future had been replaced by hope. She couldn’t bear to think of him falling back into his former troubles. Least of all as a result of something she did.
But if she told Dabiel no, and the number of volunteers fell short, her son would die. His group of traders had arrived back in Elathir last week from their latest trip to the mountains. He was lodged with his master in the temporary quarters the Traders’ Guild provided its members, in the warehouse district near the river. If the storm crashed over Elathir unchecked, he’d be trapped with the rest of the city’s residents, unable to flee to safety in time.
Images rose before her mind’s eye. Terrified people thronging the streets, pushing and shoving, trampling each other in their panic. Retreating to rooftops as water rose higher and higher. Buildings crumbling under the assault of pounding surf, spilling their screaming inhabitants into the dark water. Men, women, and children striving to help each other stay afloat amid wildly tossing waves, only to slip beneath the surface one by one when their strength ran out. The sun rising over a desolate, broken city, the Mother’s Hall intact on its hill looking down on ruins and corpses. The survivors starving and sickening and dying in numbers far too great for the wizards to save them all. She and Hanion and the rest of her guildmates pouring out their strength to the point of exhaustion day after day for months on end, and still losing hundreds or thousands of people to famine and disease.
Unbidden, opposing images sprang up before her eyes. The sun rising over an Elathir battered but whole, its people emerging into the streets to repair the damage and share stories of survival with their neighbors. A ship sailing into the docks to be met by a cluster of silent wizards. Sixty-two emaciated human and animal bodies lying in rows on the floor of the Mother’s Hall, while all Elathir honored them for their sacrifice. Thousands of people gathered in the streets watching the bodies go to their graves, mourning, grief-stricken, but alive.
Larine drew a deep shuddering breath. Conviction gripped her, far too intense to deny. She balled her hands into fists. “I have to do it.”
Hanion’s arms went around her. “No.”
“I can’t buy my own life at the cost of others’. I don’t know if it’s the Mother speaking to me, or just my own heart, but I know what I have to do. Please don’t try to talk me out of it.”
Hanion was silent for a long time, only the crushing pressure of his arms showing he’d heard what she’d said. Finally, his voice grave and soft, he said, “All right. We’ll both go.”
Larine twisted in his arms and stared at him. “You can’t.”
“Blast it, Larine, do you think I want to live without you? If you board that ship, I’ll be beside you. We’ll go to the Mother together.” His eyes bored into hers, furious and resolute.
Love and grief boiled together in her heart. Joy so intense it ached, that he loved her so much. Longing to keep him with her, so that his presence might ease the terror of facing the end. Hope that beyond death he would remain with her, both of them in the Mother’s presence forever.
But swift on their heels came horror, mounting until it was stronger than any of them. She couldn’t be the cause of his death. He didn’t feel the same certainty she did, that this sacrifice was hers to make. He would never choose to volunteer if she didn’t. She wanted him to live. He would survive the grief of losing her and go on to lead a full life, serving the Mother and Tevenar in ways no one else could, experiencing and learning and teaching, laughing and loving. They would reunite someday, when his life came to its natural end, whole and complete and perfect.
She opened her mouth to tell him so, but a whine and scratch at the door interrupted her. She pulled away and went to open it. Daisy trotted in, as cheerful as always. Behind her, Thunder clopped through the generously proportioned opening, which had been designed to accommodate even the largest familiars, and went to Hanion.
Larine shut the door. She dropped to the floor and threw her arms around Daisy. The dog licked her face and snuggled into her embrace, tail wagging. Unstinting joyous affection poured into Larine’s mind.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t ask Daisy to sacrifice her life, too. A familiar could burn out her wizard while preserving her own life, but Dabiel had said both halves of each pair would be needed. Daisy was so young, so vibrant, so full of eager enthusiasm. A world that must snuff out her bright flame to survive was too cruel to be worth saving.
Why are you sad? Daisy pushed her head under Larine’s hand, demanding a good scratching.
Larine’s fingers automatically found her favorite spot. You heard what Dabiel said. Wizards and familiars are going to die. Of course I’m sad.
Daisy regarded her quizzically. Why should going back to the Mother make you sad? When we talked to her, you were happy.
That was different. Larine remembered the swirling golden clouds and the serene peace she’d felt standing before the Mother. Maybe it was illogical to fear returning to that beautiful, shining place. But she did. Or maybe what she feared was not returning there, of finding nothing beyond death but the end of her existence. Seeing the Mother and talking to her while she was alive didn’t guarantee she’d be there when Larine died.
No, it wasn’t. Daisy wriggled tighter against Larine’s body. I liked it there. I’d be happy to go back.
You don’t understand. Animals received human-like intelligence when the Mother touched them, but they retained their animal nature. There were things they didn’t think about the same way humans did. You should get the chance to live here for a long time before you go there to stay.
Here is nice, too. I like being with you, and I like eating and playing and sleeping, and I like helping people with the Mother’s power. Daisy squirmed around and licked tears from Larine’s cheek. But I don’t like it when you’re sad.
Larine choked out a laugh that was more than half sob. Neither do I, sweetheart. She climbed to her feet. Daisy reluctantly stopped licking her and frisked around her feet instead.
Larine walked over to Hanion, who had his arms around Thunder’s neck, deep in communion with the horse. She waited until he blinked and turned to look at her, frightened but determined. “Thunder is willing.”
“So is Daisy.” Larine reached for him, and he folded her into his embrace. “I can’t ask her. She’s too young.”
“Then don’t.” He drew a shuddering breath. “Tell Dabiel no. I will, too.”
Larine felt ripped in two. She couldn’t choose. Not yet. “Hold me. As long as you can. We’ve got a little time before we have to go downstairs and tell her our decision. Let’s not waste any of it arguing.”
“No.” Hanion’s arms tightened until they nearly crushed her. She welcomed the pressure and returned it with all her strength.