Storm Rising

'Well, you are sick and you will stay in bed and do what you're told,' Natoli said severely. 'There is no point in trying to fight it.'

He smiled, a smile of unexpected, childlike sweetness. 'I won't,' he replied. 'Just wanted to say—thank you.'

'You're welcome,' An'desha told him, as Natoli patted his hand. 'Now sleep.'

To prevent any more attempts at conversation, he extinguished the lamp with a thought, and got up, leaving Karal and Natoli alone in the faint light coming from the lamp in the hall.

He went down to the garden again, leaving her to find her own way out. She and Karal had not had much privacy to be together for the past several weeks, and he thought it was about time that they had a chance for a word or two before Karal couldn't fight the drugs anymore.

I'll give them a better chance later, he promised himself.

As for him—he had some ideas that might be helpful, but he also needed some privacy to put them to the test. The primary one was that he should try something he had not attempted since Falconsbane leaped from his body as it lay dying.

He waited, watching the fountain, until Natoli descended the staircase again, wrapped in her cloak. She didn't notice him, and he didn't interrupt her introspection as she let herself out quietly. Then he let the falling water lull him until he was in that half-aware state in which it was easy to slip into a trance.

Then he sought the Moonpaths.

He was not certain he would be permitted to find them; after all, the Moonpaths were to be walked by shaman, Sword-Sworn and Goddess-Sworn, not for just anyone. The Avatars had taught him how to reach them so that he would have a safe place to meet them where he could talk with them while Falconsbane slept. But now he sent his spirit out, and up, in that familiar twisting of reality—

And he was there, standing on a path of silver sand, surrounded by a gray mist that glowed with its own pearly light.

I did it! He savored his elation; he was never certain when the Avatars would show themselves anymore, and it seemed best that if he could go to them, he should, rather than waiting for them to come to him. Their relationship with him had changed since he had come to Valdemar; when they answered his questions at all, it was obliquely. Rather than giving him answers or teaching him directly now, they gave him the briefest of guidance, leading him to find his own answers to his questions.

Then again, his questions were more difficult to answer, and the answers were of necessity more subjective than objective. In many ways, he was now determining what he wanted to make of himself and his life by the answers he uncovered.

I am learning what I am by determining what Falconsbane was in all of his lives, and determining why he did what he did and why he thought what he thought, then deliberately taking the opposite direction.

Well, that was grand philosophy, but at the moment he had need of some of those other answers, the simple ones. He hoped that the Avatars, particularly Tre'valen, could help him. After all, the real problem lay with Jarim, a Shin'a'in—and weren't they both the Avatars of the Star-Eyed? If Jarim got a visit from Tre'valen in all his glory, and was told in no uncertain terms that he was mistaken entirely about Karal, wouldn't that solve the entire problem right then and there?

That was his hope, anyway.

He sent his thoughts questing out into the mist, hunting for his teachers and guides; it was not possible to reckon the exact passage of time in that timeless place, but it was not too long before he was answered.

The mist above the path shimmered in a double column of light; then, with a shiver, solidified into two figures. One was male, the other female; the male of the two was clearly Shin'a'in, but the female was not. Her clothing and her hair, a long waterfall of silver, marked her as a Hawkbrother, Tayledras—or in Shin'a'in, Tale'edras—as were Firesong and Darkwind. Although they looked wholly human, there was a suggestion of great wings, wings of flame, in the air behind them. They, too, glowed with their own inner light, and their eyes, as they gazed smiling upon An'desha, had neither whites nor pupils. Instead, they were the dark of a night full of stars, and in the black depths shone tiny sparks of light.

When Shin'a'in called their Goddess of Four Aspects the Star-Eyed, this was what they meant, for She and all of Her spirit-servants and Avatars had eyes like this. It was a sure way to know them, and was impossible to counterfeit—so An'desha had been told.

'Well, little brother.' Tre'valen crossed his arms in a curiously human gesture and looked upon his pupil with approval. 'You have not forgotten your lessons.'

'I would not have dared to come here, if I had not the need,' An'desha said hastily. 'I beg that you will indulge me—