War Maid's choice

Chapter Twenty-Six

‹ You two-foots are an interesting breed,› Gayrfressa remarked as she moved steadily through the pine trees in the coursers’ ground-eating gait. The breeze blowing through the trees was cool, scented with the resinous, spicy smell of pine needles and just kissed with the damp breath of the Balthar River, and the road to Kalatha and Leeana’s return to duty lay before them. The head of the Gullet Tunnel, on the other hand, lay far enough behind for the voices and noise of the construction gangs to be lost in the distance, and the sound of bird song and the breeze sighing through the needles only made the vast silence of the world seen even greater and more perfect.

“What do you mean, ‘interesting’?” Leeana asked, glad for the distraction from her inner thoughts.

‹ I mean the way each of you thinks you’re your very own isolated island,› the mare explained.

She shifted smoothly to her right to skirt a particularly dense clump of trees, and Leeana could taste her quiet, ongoing delight at having had the vision of her right eye returned to her. Nor was that the only thing Leanna could sense, and the expansion of her own world was an unending thing of marvel and wonder…one she was coming to suspect would always be unending.

Leeana Hanathafressa had spent a goodly part of her life in the saddle. She knew the union, the understanding and ability to anticipate, which grew between a rider and her horse, yet never had she and her mount fused the way she had with Gayrfressa. She shared the feel of the mare’s mighty muscles, the play and stretch of tendons, knew Gayrfressa shared her own sense of balance and supple strength in turn, and the tiniest shift, the most subtle movement, blended into a symphony of balanced grace and motion. She savored the sharper, stronger, and ever so much more informative scent of everything about them-not simply the sharp pungency of pine trees, but of moss, water, rock, and earth, as well-as they spoke constantly, almost unconsciously to the huge mare. Those things didn’t come to her through her own senses, and yet the bond between her and Gayrfressa carried their meaning, their import, and their ever shifting texture to her in a constantly flowing, ever-changing tapestry that moved with Gayrfressa through her world.

“Well,” she said out loud, inhaling deeply and savoring the duality of her own, merely mortal sense of smell as it mingled with Gayrfressa’s while the courser carried her from shadow to dappled sunlight and back again, “we aren’t born with your herd sense, either. We can’t speak mind-to-mind with each other the way you can. I think it’s inevitable we feel isolated from one another in ways you don’t.”

‹ And that’s why you think no one could possibly understand why you’re so sad and worried about leaving him behind, is it?›

Gayrfressa’s tone was suddenly much gentler, and Leeana felt an unexpected stinging in her eyes. The mare, she’d discovered, was fully capable of calling Bahzell by name, yet she seldom did. Leeana wasn’t certain yet why that was, but she suspected Gayrfressa truly did think of him as her herd stallion on some deep, inner level. Courser social dynamics were quite different from those of normal horses. Their herds tended to be larger-considerably larger-than the single-stallion-and-his-harem which was the norm for horses, for one thing. And, for another, coursers lived far longer, and most of them mated for life; the herd stallion was simply the lord of the herd, their baron, not the sire of all their offspring. The members of his herd thought of him that way, without the romantic or sexual overtones which would have colored their thoughts about their own mates, and that seemed to be the way Gayrfressa thought of Bahzell.

At the same time, there was something else, as well, an additional bond between her and Bahzell. Of course, Gayrfressa had never taken a life mate. That was unusual (but not unheard of) among courser mares, although coursers who bonded with wind riders never life-mated, aside from a handful-like Walsharno, for example-who’d lost their life mates before they took a rider. No one-not even the coursers, so far as Leeana could tell-knew whether they never life-mated because on some deep, deep level they were waiting for their rider, or if they never life-mated because they had bonded with a rider. In Gayrfressa’s case, though, there was that “something else.” Was it because of the way Bahzell had healed her so long ago?

And did it matter? Was Leeana worrying about it to keep from thinking about the question Gayrfressa had just asked her?

“I…didn’t want to sound like I was crying on your shoulder,” she said after a moment. “Or maybe I mean I didn’t want to sound petulant and spoiled. It’s not as if I didn’t know he was a champion of Tomanak. And I was raised a Bowmaster-we’re supposed to understand about things like responsibility and duty. And we’re not supposed to whine when responsibility or duty require something from us.”

‹ I didn’t notice anyone doing any whining,› Gayrfressa pointed out a bit tartly.

“No?” Leeana chuckled. To her dismay, the chuckle sounded a little watery, and she blinked her eyes quickly. “Well, maybe that’s because I was afraid that if I started whining I wouldn’t be able to stop!”

Gayrfressa snorted and tossed her head, and Leeana felt the mare’s gently amused understanding almost as if a comforting arm had been laid around her shoulders. But then ‹ It’s not just being separated from him when you’re both still busy learning about each other,› the courser pointed out. ‹ Not that you don’t both seem to enjoy the learning, of course!›

Leeana felt her cheekbones heat. Coursers were even more devastatingly frank about certain matters than war maids, and she expected it was going to take her some time to grow accustomed to Gayrfressa’s amused perspective on her relationship with Bahzell.

‹ I don’t understand why you worry about that at all,› Gayrfressa said calmly. ‹ I mean, it’s not as if he didn’t understand how to-›

“We’ll…talk about that later, all right?” Leeana interrupted a bit hastily. “That’s one of those areas where two-foots and coursers need to…take a little time deciding how-or if-to talk about it at all.”

‹ Well, if you say so, › Gayrfressa agreed equably, but not so serenely that Leeana didn’t taste the mare’s bubbling amusement. ‹ But it’s not as if he doesn’t understand how to, is it?› she continued, and Leeana laughed and shook her head.

“Yes, he certainly does ‘understand how to,’” she admitted, and it was true. She was still growing accustomed to the notion that by Horse Stealer hradani standards she was a tiny, delicate little thing, and at first Bahzell had clearly been afraid he might inadvertently break her. Once she’d disabused him of that notion, however, it had turned out that he “understood how to” even more thoroughly than she’d ever allowed herself to hope he might. Which, she was forced to admit, was indeed one of the reasons she was so unhappy at riding steadily away from him on this beautiful, cool morning.

‹ And so it should be,› Gayrfressa told her. ‹ But it’s only one r eason. And the other reason is that you’re worried about him, not just unhappy about leaving him behind.›

“Yes,” Leeana admitted. “I’m worried about all of the others, too, really-especially Trianal and Brandark. But I’m discovering I’m more selfish than I thought I was.”

‹ That’s another two-foot attitude. It’s not selfish to worry about your other half, Leeana. And that’s what he is: your other two-foot half. Not worrying about what might happen to him would be like trying not to worry about what might happen to your right forehoof!›

Gayrfressa was right, Leeana realized, yet it was difficult for her to admit it. War maid or not, she was the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of baronesses. Generations of her mothers and grandmothers had sent husbands and fathers and sons and brothers off to war, obedient to that drumbeat of responsibility and duty.

And too many of us never saw them come home again, she thought. Maybe that’s my real problem. He’s so much larger than life-a god-touched champion, the most deadly man I’ve ever known…and the gentlest. He’s all of those things and more, even if he is a blanket-stealer in the middle of the night, grumpy in the morning, impossibly stubborn, and impossibly determined to do the “right thing” however maddening it may be for the people who love him! But despite all that, I know he’s not really immortal. I know he won’t necessarily be coming home again just because of how much I love him, how much I need that “other two-foot half” of mine. And the truth is, that terrifies me. The thought of losing him, of feeling some cold, empty hole where he used to be…I’m not sure I’d truly have the courage to face that. Not that I’ll ever admit it to him; not after he tried to use that very argument to convince me I was making a terrible mistake!

She snorted in sudden amusement of her own, and felt Gayrfressa’s encouragement and affection in the back of her brain.

“I think you’re good for me,” she told the mare, breathing the resinous air deep once again. “You help me ‘put things in perspective,’ as Mother always used to say. Usually,” she admitted with a thoughtful air, “about the time I started feeling most sorry for myself, now that I think about it.”

‹ So two-foot mothers do that, too, do they?›

“Oh, yes!” Leeana said fervently.

‹ Good.›

The ground sloped downward in front of them, and Leeana automatically adjusted her seat and balance as Gayrfressa started down the slope.

‹ I’m glad you spent so much time learning to ride the lesser cousins,› the mare remarked. ‹ Walsharno didn’t have that advantage when he climbed into the saddle the first time. I got to watch, you know.› The mare tossed her head again, this time with a whinny of laughing memory. ‹ He fell off a lot.›

“He hadn’t had much opportunity to practice, you know,” Leeana said a bit primly.

‹ Of course he hadn’t! Which of the lesser cousins could have carried him?› Gayrfressa inquired pragmatically. ‹ Doesn’t change the fact that he looked like a bag of feed in the beginning…when he wasn’t bouncing along the ground behind Walsharno, at least.›

“I suppose not,” Leeana agreed, lips twitching on the edge of a smile. “He’s made up for it since, though,” she added, remembering Bahzell’s graceful seat…and other things about him.

‹ Yes, he has.› Gayrfressa’s mental voice carried a possessive pride, and Leeana leaned forward to pat the courser’s shoulder. ‹ In fact,› the mare continued, her voice turning more serious, ‹ he’s learned quite a few things you’re going to have to learn.›

“Such as?”

There might have been the very thinnest edge of pique in Leeana’s two-word question. She was a Sothoii, after all. The suggestion that her equestrian skills might be wanting in any respect came perilously close to insult.

‹ How to fight from the saddle,› Gayrfressa replied with a tart snort. ‹ Nobody ever taught you a thing about that, now did they?›

“Well, no,” Leeana admitted after a slightly huffy moment, then shrugged. “Properly reared young noblewomen aren’t supposed to even think about something as unladylike as actually fighting.” She grimaced as she remembered a long ago morning in Kalatha when Ravlahn Thregafressa had invited a very young Leeana Hanathafressa to “attack her” with a practice knife. It hadn’t been a very…impressive attack.

“If I’d had the good taste to be born a boy, they would have taught me to fight mounted before I ever got to Kalatha,” she continued. “Except, of course, that if I’d had the good taste to be born a boy I wouldn’t ever ever have had to run away to Kalatha. Which I did. Have to run away to Kalatha I mean.” She paused, trying to straighten that out in her own mind, then shrugged again. “But after I got to Kalatha, there wasn’t anyone to teach me. War maids mostly fight on their own feet, you know. We’re not very cavalry oriented.”

‹ No, you’re not, › Gayrfressa agreed in a tone of distinct disapproval.

“It wouldn’t be fair to expect anything else,” Leeana pointed out. “Not given where most of us come from. Garlahna, for example. Or Raythas. Or even Erlis. They may be Sothoii, but nobody was throwing them into a saddle when they were two years old, you know!”

‹ I suppose not,› Gayrfressa conceded. ‹ Not that that explains why they couldn’t have learned later!›

“I suppose not.” Leeana used Gayrfressa’s own words deliberately, accompanied by a snort of purely human dimensions. “Although,” she continued more thoughtfully, “I really wouldn’t be too surprised to find out the war maids decided years and years ago that they weren’t going to put mounted troops into the field because of how much they expected all the menfolk would carry on if they did. They may have decided that was one toe they didn’t need to step on.”

‹ Well, you’re going to have to learn how to do it.› Gayrfressa said in a no-argument sort of way.

“Fine,” Leeana replied, a bit surprised by the firmness of Gayrfressa’s tone.

‹ And you’re going to have to get rid of those silly short swords when you do it, too, › Gayrfressa continued. ‹ How do you expect to reach anyone with something like that from my saddle? And we have t o get you a bow. You do know how to shoot a bow, don’t you?›

“From my own two feet, yes.” Leeana frowned down at Gayrfressa’s single ear. “That’s not the same as using a horse bow though, you know!”

‹ Oh, don’t I know? ” Gayrfressa shook her head in profound disgust. ‹ It took years for Walsharno to convince him to learn to use a bow properly. If you can call the way he uses one even today “properly,” that is!›

“There are some advantages to that arbalest of his,” Leeana pointed out.

‹ Not from a courser’s saddle, there aren’t, and a wind rider doesn’t have any business fighting from anywhere else!›

Something clicked in Leeana’s brain, and she cocked her head, still looking down at Gayrfressa’s ear.

“I don’t think it’s going to be very easy for Balcartha to integrate a single wind rider into the Kalatha Guard,” she said slowly.

Gayrfressa didn’t reply, but she turned her head far enough she could look back at her rider, and the set of her ear was not encouraging.

“I am a member of the Guard,” Leeana told her firmly. “And my current term of enlistment won’t be up for another two years.”

Still nothing…aside from a slightly flatter ear.

“ I’m a seventy-five, Gayrfressa. I can’t just walk away from the rest of my platoon, you know, and none of them are wind riders!”

‹ And none of them are my wind-sister, either, › Gayrfressa pointed out stubbornly. ‹ Your place is in my saddle when you have to fight-not down there running around on those two ridiculous little feet of yours where I can’t keep an eye on you!›

“But-” Leeana began a bit hotly, then clamped her teeth tightly on what she’d been about to say as she tasted the anxiety behind Gayrfressa’s obstinacy. And the mare had a point, she admitted to herself a moment later. She was the daughter of one wind rider and the wife, now, of another. She’d always known-or thought she had, at any rate-how completely and intimately a wind rider and his courser merged, both in and out of combat. It had been natural enough for her to think she understood, at any rate, beginning from the standpoint of the many years she’d spent learning to become one with a horse like Boots. Yet she’d already realized she’d never truly grasped the totality of a wind rider’s bond before Gayrfressa had entered her life. Not even a marvelous horse like Boots could have taught her that…or what would happen to a rider who lost his courser.

Or to a courser who lost his-or her — rider.

It wasn’t something any Sothoii liked to think about, and the coursers’ longer lives meant it didn’t happen as often as a rider lost a horse, but it did happen. More often, it was the rider who survived, if only because human lives were a bit longer, on average, even than a courser’s. But it also happened because coursers were bigger targets…and because they couldn’t be armored as well as a human. Leeana had met a handful of wind riders who’d lost their coursers, and she’d sensed the gaping wounds which had been left at the heart of them, but not until now-not until she’d felt the richness of Gayrfressa’s mind and voice in the depths of her own mind-did she truly grasp how terrible those wounds had actually been.

It wasn’t unusual for a rider to end his own life if he lost his courser, despite the Sothoii’s cultural prohibition on suicide…and coursers had no such prohibition.

“Dear heart,” she said quietly, after a moment, “I don’t know how we’re going to deal with this. We’re going to have to-I understand that now-but I don’t have any idea how.” She leaned forward in the saddle, running her hand gently over the scar reaching to Gayrfressa’s shoulder, feeling the hard, ridged line of it under the mare’s chestnut coat and shivering deep in her bones as she remembered how Gayrfress had received it. “That’s one reason you were talking about islands, wasn’t it?”

‹ Partly,› Gayrfressa admitted after a moment, her voice as quiet as Leeana’s own. ‹ I’m not sure I realized that when I started, though.› She snorted again, more gently than before. ‹ I was actually thinking about how silly it was of you to feel like you were “leaving him behind” when he rides with you in your heart every moment, no matter where you are.› Leeana felt her eyes prickle afresh and stroked Gayrfressa’s shoulder again. ‹ Still, I think you’re right-I was thinking about this, too. I understand you have obligations to the other two-foots, Sister. I know you assumed them before we’d ever even met, and I don’t expect you to shirk them. But surely the war maids can understand how our bond changes things?›

“War maids certainly ought to understand changes if anyone can,” Leeana agreed feelingly. “Unfortunately, they haven’t had any experience with war maid wind riders. No one has!”

‹ I know war maids fight on their own feet, but you can be far more dangerous on my back than on foot,› Gayrfressa said in an almost hopeful tone. ‹ Think how much faster you can move! That alone would be a huge advantage, wouldn’t it?›

“Sometimes, at least. On the other hand, you’re not exactly built for creeping about in the grass, now are you?” Leeana teased gently. “That’s where war maids spend a lot of their time, you know,” she added more seriously. “And however effective a wind rider might be, one wind rider by herself is hardly going to constitute what you might call a concentrated striking force, is she?”

‹ No, but — ›

It was Gayrfressa’s turn to cut herself off, and Leeana nodded.

“I understand,” she repeated. “Now I really do understand, dearheart. And we will work it out somehow, I promise. I don’t have a clue how yet, but I’m sure something will come to me.” She chuckled a bit sourly. “I already knew I was going to have to explain the wedding bracelet, given the Charter’s position on war maid marriages. I don’t suppose there’s any good reason why we can’t go ahead and add this to the situation, as well.” Her chuckle turned into a laugh. “By this time, Balcartha and Mayor Yalith ought to be used to my making problems for them. If they aren’t, it’s not for lack of trying on my part, anyway!”

She felt Gayrfressa’s silent chortle of agreement meld with her own, and her heart eased. They would find a way to work it out. She didn’t know how, but she was certain something would come to her, and Gayrfressa turned a bend and came to a sudden halt as the trail which would become a proper road-and an Axeman road, at that-someday soon abruptly disappeared. It didn’t peter out, or fade. It didn’t even end, really. It simply… stopped, cut off as if by a blade, and the thick carpet of pine needles from years past spread out before them unmarred and unmarked.

Leeana stiffened in the saddle, her head coming up and her eyes widening as her own astonishment merged with Gayrfressa’s. She opened her mouth, although she didn’t actually know what she intended to say. But before she could begin on whatever she might have been going to say, she saw the redhaired woman seated on that carpet of needles, leaning back against the tallest, thickest pine tree she’d ever seen in her life. And that was just as strange as the disappearance of the trail, because the woman hadn’t been there when Gayrfressa stopped. For that matter, Leeana felt certain-or thought she did, at any rate-that not even the tree had been there when Gayrfressa stopped.

She shook her head, but the surprises weren’t quite finished yet.

The woman at the base of the pine tree wore plate armor. Reflected light curtsied across its burnished surface like rippling water as the cool breeze tossed the pine trees and let shafts of sunlight burn golden through the canopy. She wore a surcoat over it, and for some reason, Leeana wasn’t certain of the surcoat’s color. It seemed to be black, but perhaps it was actually only the darkest cobalt blue she’d ever seen or imagined. Or perhaps it was a blend of colors from a midnight summer sky no mortal eye had ever beheld or envisioned. Leeana didn’t know about that, but the device on the breast of that surcoat was a white scroll. It was picked out in gold bullion and tiny, brilliant sapphires and rubies, that scroll, with silver skulls for winding knobs, and bound with a spray of periwinkle, the five-lobed flowers wrought in showers of dark amethyst. The woman wasn’t especially tall by Sothoii standards. Indeed, she was several inches shorter than Leeana…which meant she was also shorter than the huge, double-bitted axe leaning against the same pine tree.

The woman seemed unaware of their presence, her attention concentrated on the mountain lynx stretched across her lap. It lay on its back, totally limp, all four paws in the air as she rubbed its belly and smiled down at it. A helmet sat beside her, and her hair-a darker and even more glorious red than Leeana’s-was bound with a diadem of woven gold and silver badged with more of those amethyst-leaved blossoms of periwinkle.

Courser and rider stood motionless, frozen, trying to understand why the world about them seemed so different, and then the woman looked up, and Leeana’s throat tightened as midnight-blue eyes looked straight into her soul.

The woman gazed at them for several endless seconds, then clucked her tongue gently at the lynx across her lap. The cat-it was enormous, probably close to seventy pounds-yawned and stretched, then gave itself a shake, rolled off her lap, and stood. It looked up at her, then butted her right vambrace gently and affectionately before it glanced at Leeana. It regarded her for a moment, supremely unimpressed by her or even by Gayrfressa, then gathered its haunches under it, leapt lightly away from the redhaired woman…and vanished into thin air in mid-leap.

Leeana blinked, but before she could speak or otherwise react, the woman had risen, coming to her feet as if the armor she wore was no more encumbering than a war maid’s chari and yathu. She stood gazing up at Leeana, and somehow, despite Gayrfressa’s towering height, it seemed as if Leeana was gazing up at her.

“Give you good morning, daughters,” the woman said, and a strange shiver, like a flicker of lightning touched with ice and silver, went through Leeana. She knew she would never be able to describe that voice to anyone, for the words which might have captured it had never been forged. It was woven of beauty, joy, sorrow, celebration-of tears and terror, of memories lost and dreams never forgotten. It was freighted with welcome and burnished with farewell, and wrapped about it, flowing through it, were peace and completion.

Leeana never remembered moving, but suddenly she was on her feet, standing at Gayrfressa’s shoulder, left hand raised against the mare’s warm, chestnut coat, and the woman smiled at them both.

“Lady,” Leeana heard her own voice say, and inclined her head, for she knew the woman before her now.

Isvaria Orfressa, firstborn of Orr and Kontifrio, goddess of death, completion, and memory and second only to Tomanak himself among Orr’s children in power. A quiet terror rippled through Leeana Hanathafressa as she found herself face-to-face with the very personification of death in a quiet, sunny pine wood she knew now was somehow outside the world in which she’d always lived. Yet there was no dread in that terror, no fear, only the awareness that she gazed upon the ending which must come to every living thing.

“I haven’t come for you, Leeana,” that awesome, indescribable voice said gently. It sang in Leeana’s blood and bone, murmured from the roots of mountains and sent endless, quiet echoes rolling across the heavens. “Nor for you, Gayrfressa.” Isvaria smiled at both of them. “Not yet, not today. Someday I will, and gather you to me as I gather all my worthy dead, and, oh, but the two of you will be worthy when that day comes! I’ll know you, and I’ll come for you, and you will find a place prepared for you at my table.”

Leeana inhaled deeply, feeling the power of life racing through her with the air filling her lungs, the blood pumping through her veins, and knew that in some strange way she had never been as alive as in this moment when she stood face-to-face with death Herself and saw in Isvaria’s face not terror or despair but only…welcome.

“But that day is not today,” Isvaria told them. “No, today I’ve come for another purpose entirely.”

“Another purpose, Lady?” Leeana was astounded by the levelness of her own tone, and Isvaria shook her head, her smile broader and warmer.

“You’re very like your husband, Leeana-and you like your brother, Gayrfressa. In this universe, or in any other, all any of you will ever ask is to meet whatever comes upon your feet.”

“I don’t know about that, Lady,” Leeana replied, more aware in that moment of how young she truly was than she’d been in years.

“Perhaps not, but I do- we do,” Isvaria told her. Then her smile faded, and she reached out and touched Leeana’s cheek ever so gently. That touch was as light as spider silk, gentle as a breeze, yet Leeana felt the power to shatter worlds in the cool, smooth fingers touching her skin so lightly. “We know, just as we know you, and we’ve waited for you as long as we have for Bahzell and Walsharno.”

“I don’t understand,” Leeana said, and felt Gayrfressa with her in her mind.

“Of course you don’t.” Isvaria cocked her head, those bottomless eyes studying Leeana’s face. “And I’m sure it’s a bit overwhelming, even for someone as redoubtable as you and Gayrfressa, to encounter so many deities in such a brief period of time.” She smiled again. “Time is a mortal concept, you know-one we’ve been forced to come to know and share…and abide by, but one that would never have occurred to us, left to our own devices. In that respect, you mortals are mightier than any god or goddess. And in the end, just as you created time, you’ll transcend it, and in the transcending you’ll heal or damn us all.”

Leeana swallowed, and Isvaria shook her head quickly.

“I haven’t come to lay the burden of all eternity upon you and demand you take it up today, Leeana!”

“Then may I ask why you have come, Lady?”

“Yes, very like Bahzell,” Isvaria murmured. Then she stood back slightly, folded her arms, and looked at the two of them levelly.

“My daughters, both of you have roles to play in a struggle which began before time itself. Has Bahzell told you what my brother Tomanak explained to him about the nature of time and the war between Light and Dark?”

“He’s…tried, Lady,” Leeana said after a moment. “He said there are many universes, each of them as real as our own yet separate. Some are very like ours, others are very different, but Light and Dark are at war in all of them. He said that everyone- all of us-exist in all those universes, or many of them at least, and that we’re the ones who determine who finally wins in each of them. And that, in the end, the final confrontation between Light and Dark will be settled by how many of those universes each side controls when the last one falls.”

“Not a bad explanation, at all,” Isvaria told her. “But not quite complete. Did he tell you not even a goddess can know exactly what future, what chain of events and decisions, any single mortal in any single one of those universes will experience?”

Leeana nodded, and Isvaria nodded back very seriously.

“That, my daughters, is where mortals’ freedom to choose-and ability to fail-enters the equation. In the end, it all depends upon you and your choices. Oh, chance can play its role, as well, but over the entire spectrum of universes, chance cancels out and choice and courage and fear and greed and love and selfishness and cruelty and mercy-all those things which make you mortals what you are-come into their own.

“Yet the great pattern, the warp and woof of reality- those we deities can see clearly. Those are what guide and draw our own efforts to protect this strand as it works its way through the loom of history, or to snip that one short. It’s there, at those moments, that our champions-and those who love them, Leeana Hanathafressa and Gayrfressa, daughter of Mathygan and Yorthandro-take their stands in the very teeth of evil to fight-and all too often to die-in defense of the Light. And no being, no mortal and no god, can know for certain whether they’ll triumph or fail before that very moment. My daughters, I know no better than you whether or not this world in which you live, this universe which is all you know, will stand or fall at the end of time. That decision rests in your hands. Not in mine, not in my brothers’ or my sisters’-in yours.”

Leeana swallowed, and Isvaria touched her face once more.

“You’re fit to carry that burden, Leeana, whether you realize it or not…and you will. In every universe, in every time, when the moment arrives, you will. And if the Dark triumphs, it will never be because you failed the Light in that moment of need. But I tell you this, as well-if the Light triumphs in this universe of yours, it will triumph through you and Bahzell.”

Leeana’s eyes went huge, and the fingers touching her face cupped her cheek gently.

“Power and possibilities, outcomes and events, swirl so thickly about you that even a goddess can see only dimly. And we can take advantage of that dimness, we deities, and…manipulate it so that our enemies are even blinder than we. Not always, not in all places. We must choose our times, pick those events where it becomes most crucial for our enemies to guess rather than to know. Your life, and Bahzell’s, are one of those times. We can’t tell you what will happen, or even what you must do, because by the very act of telling you we would affect the outcome. But in every future I see, you come to me, Leeana. And you, Gayrfressa. You come to my table, in all your thousands of choices, and I welcome you. You come through pain, and you come through sorrow, and you come through loss, and you do not always come in triumph. But you come to me unbroken and as you are now, upon your feet and never your knees, and the light of you shines, my daughters.”

Leeana stared into the eyes of the Goddess of Death, and those eyes touched something inside her. There was a…flicker. A dancing current or a flaring candle flame. She couldn’t put a name to the sensation, not really, yet she knew it would always be there. She might lose it, from time to time, and it would be no armor against fear, uncertainty, doubt…but it would always return to her, as well, and under that fear and uncertainty and doubt there would be this assurance, this promise, from the power to which all life returned in the fullness of time.

“I know it’s a heavy weight to bear,” Isvaria told her, “but you’re fit to bear it, both of you, and love will take you to places the Dark can never come. I do not name you my champions, but I do name you the daughters I’ve called you- my daughters. Whether you come to me early, or you come to me late, I will be waiting for you, and I will gather you as my own.”

Leeana stood gazing into those eyes, feeling the iron fidelity of that promise, for an eternity. It lasted forever…and took no longer than the flicker between the beats of a hummingbird’s wings.

And then the pine woods were empty once again, except for her and Gayrfressa.

She blinked, shaking her head, feeling as if she were awakening from a dream and yet with every memory perfectly formed, and felt Gayrfressa’s matching bemusement. Perhaps it had been only a dream, she thought, but then she felt something in her hand and looked down.

It was a sprig of periwinkle, its stem wrought of silver, its tiny flowers exquisitely formed in chips of sapphire. Periwinkle, the flower of memory…and of Isvaria Orfressa, the keeper of that memory.