and can result in benefits to very many people!”
“Explain to me how an act of fornication-three acts of fornication, as you describe it-can result in benefits to anyone!”
“The Spell of Summoning is a cherished, sacred rite; it is not fornication!” snapped Miradel. “It is a rite that is blessed by the Goddess Worldweaver, and it is necessary to the bringing of humans to Nayve. It calls upon your beauty, your caring, your love-you must arouse your warrior and bring him to release three times in the night of the casting-but by so doing you bring him the chance of immortal life on Nayve.”
“Immortal life, if he isn’t killed, you mean. Tell me, how is this world, this Fourth Circle, heavenly?”
“Nayve is a world of peace, and yet we find ourselves beset by war-by a war greater even than those that convulse the world of our birth,” the druid explained patiently. “The Lord of Null, Karlath-Fayd, is sending a fleet against our world that numbers thousands of ships and a million warriors-warriors whose souls he has drawn from Earth since before the age of Caesar. Nearly every man killed in war has come to him, unwilling yet compelled. In the last hundred years the carnage wrought by Napoleon and his enemies, by the American Civil War, and now this Great War that threatens to consume all of Europe, have swelled his ranks to an unthinkable degree. Even now, his ships have turned toward land; the battle will be joined in a matter of days.”
“But you summon warriors from Earth yourself, you and your fellow druids?” Shandira challenged. “To fight and die in this campaign?”
“Yes. We select men of great skill and bravery and honor and goodness. We bring them here at the moment of death, through the Spell of Summoning… the carnal magic that you have called fornication.”
“Why do you need me? I have seen many women here, in the temple and in the Grove. Some of them are clearly wanton. Can they not summon warrior after warrior, one every night perhaps?”
Miradel flushed, unease and guilt wrestling within her. “It is not that simple. When first the spell was cast, it was a sentence of death upon the druid who worked the summons. I used it to bring Natac here, more than five hundred years ago, because I sensed his greatness, and I knew that Nayve, that the goddess, would need his help. In the course of that casting I became an old woman in one night, commencing an inevitable slide toward mortal death.
“It was not until one of our order, Juliay, cast this spell to bring a warrior from America, at the end of their civil war, that we made a discovery: there is a stream in the Mountains of Moonscape, and a druid who drinks the water of that stream may cast the spell-once-without suffering the ravages of age. Juliay’s discovery has given us the means to resist. Just two days ago a party of heroes journeyed, magically, to that river and returned with six casks of the precious liquid. In the years since Juliay’s discovery, we have brought nearly a thousand valiant warriors from Earth, all of whom have been enlisted in the defense of Nayve. But no druid can cast the spell a second time without facing the future of aging and death. So each new warrior requires a new druid.”
“You make it sound very clinical,” Shandira said coldly. “Have you selected the man I am to give myself to?”
“No! You will undergo training, and you will study the Tapestry of the Worldweaver. The selection of a warrior is yours alone to make. And you should know that it is not uncommon for the druid to love her warrior… for the lovers to remain faithful to each other over decades, even centuries. It is that way with Natac and myself.” Miradel was surprised by how defensive she felt; never before had she considered her spell worked upon the warrior as anything other than a pure and sacred rite. How was Shandira able to twist everything around?
“And if I choose no one?”
“That is your decision to make. You will still have work to do here, and you will certainly hope that our world survives the onslaught of the Deathlord. If not, it will be the end… not just of Nayve, but of everything.”
Shandira drew a deep breath and turned away, stepping to the side of a massive oak trunk and placing her hand upon the bark, as if she would draw strength from the forest giant. She bowed her head, and Miradel wondered if she was praying, extending a plea for guidance-or succor-to the God in whom, perhaps, she still believed. At last, the black woman raised her head and looked over her shoulder.
“I will start this training,” Shandira declared. “I make no promises that I will do your bidding. But at least, I shall try to learn.”
“I could ask for nothing more,” Miradel said sincerely. She extended a hand to the taller woman, who accepted the gesture with her own strong fingers. “Come this way,” the elder druid declared. “You can start by observing the Hour of Darken.”
3
The Goblin Ghetto
One Spark: Dumb!
Two Sparks: Bum!
Three sparks burns ’im,
Run, Gob, Run
Darann was used to the stares and insults of the guards, but she couldn’t help bristling when one of them, a gap-toothed dwarf she knew as Blackie, suggested he’d have to subject her to a physical search.
“You lay a hand on me,” the dwarfwoman snapped, “and you’ll be pulling back a bloody stump!”
Blackie hooted in amusement as his cronies, the six guards at the Metal Gate of the ghetto, chuckled appreciatively. “Does that mean you are trying to smuggle a knife in to those cruds?” he asked, his eyes roaming freely down the outline of her tunic where it swelled over her breasts.
She ignored him, pushing past until she stood before the iron door. The black wall rose high above her, soaring nearly a hundred feet into the yawning cavern that was the Underworld. Water trickled through the sewers beside the street, gurgling through rusty grates as it passed into the ghetto, which was located in the lowest, soggiest quarter of the city of Axial. For most of her life this had been merely the quarter of the Seer capital that was home to its most benighted denizens, but for ten years now, since this wall had been erected by the king’s order, it had become a virtual prison.
Her heart pounded, and for a moment she wondered if the guards would call her bluff insisting that she be searched. But apparently she still had some status left in this city; none of the men-at-arms dared to lay a hand upon her. Finally, the metal barrier began to rumble upward, and she could again draw a breath.
A careful breath, she reminded herself, as the stench of the ghetto spilled through the opening and quickly surrounded her with its cloying miasma, a mixture of feces, disease, and death. She quickly stepped through, conscious of the ironic truth that she actually felt safer here, in the brackish hole of the goblins, than she did among the duly appointed guardians of her ancestral home. As usual, there was no one in sight of the opening gate. The goblins had learned through bitter experience that the portal was far more likely to reveal a thuggish band of young Seers looking for a little blood sport than any visitor engaged on a mission of mercy.
Darann advanced, displaying a confidence she did not feel. She felt the eyes of the guards on her back and held her shoulders straight, her chin high. It took all of her will not to hurry as she strode into the lightless street that gave access to the ghetto. As the metal plate rumbled downward behind her, cloaking the narrow street in murky shadow, she finally became aware of movement, scuttling figures creeping forward, wide nostrils gaping, sniffing loudly, confirming her identity.
“It’s the Lady,” one whispered in a gurgling voice that carried far along the darkened byway.
“The Lady!” others repeated, the sound washing like waves through the alleys and tenements of the ghetto.
She felt a gentle touch on her arm, others against her shoulder. One, probably a youngster, brushed light fingers along her knee. When she had first started coming here, these contacts had startled, even frightened her, but now she recognized them for the affectionate greetings they were. It had surprised her to discover that goblins were such tactile people, in many ways more empathetic and caring than her own race.
