Dainty fingers played curiously over the glittering stones set in the black enamel box. Bare toes curled and uncurled impatiently against the thick feathers of a dikidik hide. Within the white robe of the lowest order of initiated Windsingers, a slender young body fidgeted. Grielea felt the mystery of the box hovering at the edge of her mind, an enigmatic formula based on a mathematical concept just beyond her grasp. Again her fingers played over the stones, varying their rhythm by one from the combination just tried. Grielea closed her eyes for a moment, as if by concentration she would feel the auras of the stones, hear them whisper to her the setting put upon them.
‘Rebeke cautioned us not to touch the boxes?’
The lisping voice was half-questioning and half-amazed at Grielea’s audacity in disobeying the Windmistress’s wishes. Grielea’s eyes flew open, and she glared at Liset in irritation.
Liset retracted her pale eyes from the dark sparks of Grielea’s. The spidery T’cherian body hunched and quivered beneath the white robe. Grielea wrinkled her scaled nose in disdain at Liset’s disapproval. Liset’s mandibles twitched.
‘To achieve the full rank of Windsinger, Grielea, we must practice the strictest obedience and self-restraint. To rule others, we must first learn to rule ourselves.’ Even the clattery lisp of a T’cherian accent could not disguise the piety in Liset’s words.
‘Tend to your box. I shall tend to mine!’
Liset’s mandibles clacked in astonishment. She settled her face abruptly. She wished her transformation to Windsinger would proceed more rapidly. Always the sounds and ingrained movements of her T’cherian body shamed her. If only her shell would begin to scale! No doubt that was why Grielea dared to speak to her so rudely. She had no right. Liset knew they were of the same rank of initiation. She had heard the rumors about Grielea. She had been sent to Rebeke as a last resort. Rebeke was well known to be the strictest and most demanding of the Windmistresses. And Grielea was notoriously headstrong; she had spent a full two turns in this grade already! Liset groomed her cowl smooth, and turned back to the large square box before her. So let Grielea play with her box. It would have its consequences. Liset intended to fulfill her instructions meticulously. Not for her the chilling cell and cold gruel reserved for the disobedient.
Grielea gave a thin smile of satisfaction as Liset’s eye stalks swung away from her. She bent again over the box on the low table before her. Her fingers danced over the stones. Nothing. She paused, and then her hands moved again. Another pause. Another combination.
There was no betraying click of latch. The box sighed silently under Grielea’s hands. She glanced over her shoulder. Liset’s robed carapace was toward her. The stiffness of the crouched figure with its squat cowl showed Liset’s resolution not to participate in Grielea’s misbehavior. Grielea smiled mockingly at her back. She turned back to her treasure.
Silently the box slid up from its base. Grielea set the top of the box in her lap. She leaned over her prize. Her fingers nimbly unwound a long linen wrapping.
The base was a block of white stone, veined with black and red. From it, rooted at the wrists, two hands grew as gracefully as calla lilies. They clasped each other peacefully, as if awaiting a coffin flower. But a warm flush of life glowed under the olive skin of the hands. They were waiting for their master. On one of the long tapering fingers was a ring. To some it would have seemed a plain, cheap ring of black metal. But to Grielea it fairly shouted the identity of the owner. She stiffened. Was that a light step? She bunched the wrapping back over the hands. She smiled a lynx smile as she eased the top of the box back into place. A brush of her fingers over the stones reset their lock. So he was the stakes they played for … Her grey-scaled brow knotted slightly as she added that to her cache of carefully gleaned facts.
‘You may leave off your vigil now. Retire to your chambers for a rest period. We shall be taking your posts for you.’
Liset jumped at the sudden voice behind her. But Grielea slowly raised her chin and lowered her eyes. She smiled submissively. ‘Yes, Windmistress,’ she simpered, and ‘Yes, Windmistress,’ Liset echoed her. Liset and Grielea hastened from the room, their white robes swirling against the floor. But only one went to her chamber to rest.
Medie moved into the room slowly. There was no disguising the look of admiration she gave the two enamelled boxes. The smaller casket rested on a small table before a stool. The larger box was on the floor. The room was better furnished than Rebeke’s sitting room. Here were hides of rare beasts and birds scattered about to relieve bare feet from the coldness of the highly polished floor. The walls were graced with sky windows, artfully designed living pictures of many parts of the worlds. But the only seats available were the hard wooden stools that Liset and Grielea had just vacated. Medie gave one a glance of distaste. Idly she trailed a long finger across the top of the larger enamel box.
‘How best were this done?’
Rebeke paused, then settled herself upon Grielea’s stool. She spoke slowly. ‘The boxes will take skill to open, and patience. Dresh will know that their solving is but a matter of time. He will, I think, hasten here, hoping against hope to recover his body. We could, of course, open his boxes and drain his powers now. But the doing of it might spook the quarry, in a manner of speaking.’
‘You believe he will come here, will try to retrieve them himself?’
‘I do.’ Rebeke spoke with quiet assurance.
‘And who would know better what he would do?’ Medie dropped the words casually, but they fell into a suddenly silent room.
‘Do you rebuke me with my past?’ Rebeke queried softly.
‘No. Not rebuke. I merely wonder at it, as many have before me. You must have known why the High Council chose you for this guardianship. A make or break test of your loyalty. Given a final choice, which will Rebeke take: the Windsingers, or Dresh?’
‘And Rebeke chooses Rebeke.’ A tiny chill breeze rose to whisk past their ankles.
‘With no regrets?’ prodded Medie. There was no acid in her voice, only an elder sister’s interest. In her brown and white eyes there was only concern.
‘Regrets were done with long ago, Medie. Let us use a metaphor. Suppose you had a pet dog that went wild. You would let it go, in fondness, allowing it to choose the life it preferred. But suppose it became vicious, and menaced the flocks of your neighbors. Would not you feel responsible for the situation? Would you not remedy it yourself?’
‘Dresh is no more to you now than a stray cur?’
‘It was only a metaphor,’ Rebeke replied with some asperity. She rose and drifted over to a sky picture. In a wooded dell, white anemones had pushed up from the deep mosses. Tall spruce sheltered them from the wide blue skies above. Rebeke breathed deep of their fragrance, standing close to the sky window to receive it. The air of the image felt cool and fresh, recently washed by rains.
‘I see, then.’ Medie’s voice reached across the room. ‘We wait in the hopes of baiting him in. We do not wish to make him despair of regaining his body, for then he might choose to continue on his way and take another body elsewhere.’
‘Exactly.’ Rebeke’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper as she scanned the clear skies of the window world. Her finely scaled hands rested lightly on the wooden sill. ‘I do not think I shall have to wait much longer.’
‘Did you leave word we were to be notified when his aura was felt on this plane?’
‘Of course.’ Rebeke turned back, nodding briskly. ‘But I have not told my apprentices whom we await. The portion of aura he casts now is so different from the whole that I do not think they will suspect. I have described it well enough for them to know it when they see it.’
‘You do not trust them enough to tell them what we have here?’ Medie’s long fingers drummed lightly on the box before her.
Rebeke crossed the room to resume her seat. ‘It is not a matter of trust, Medie. They are so very young, so very full of the idealism of the Windsingers. I judged it best not to distract them with too many possibilities, or with thoughts that might divide their loyalties. Choices and loyalties are alarmingly clear at their age. Some might misinterpret what we do, might see it as treachery. I saw no need to alarm them.’
‘Wise. If we succeed, they will be under our protection. And if we do not … well, I am neither so old nor so cynical that I would enjoy seeing their innocence pay for our daring. By keeping them free of knowledge of our undertaking, you have also kept them free of what some might call our guilt. Well done, sister.’
A slightly awkward silence fell. After a time, Medie began to shift on her stool. ‘I could wish for a more comfortable seat.’
‘And I. But the very discomfort of it promotes alertness. Shall we be sleeping on velvet cushions or drowsy with wine when Dresh makes his entrance? His power is not as great as he believes it, but he has a certain sly craft. I shall not make the mistake of underestimating him. Be patient, Medie. Afterwards, we shall recline, we shall eat and drink and talk together. For I think that there is much we could tell one another. What the High Council does not say to Rebeke’s face, it may whisper to Medie. Am I wrong?’
Medie gave her a small and bitter smile.