“What’s your name, friend?”
He hesitated, but only for an instant. “Creved jal Winza.”
“And you’re a healer, aren’t you, Creved?”
“You’ve heard of me?”
“No. I sense that you have healing magic, and so I assumed.”
“You sensed-?”
“A Weaver can do that. You also have language of beasts. Those are two of the deeper magics. How is it that you never ended up in an Eandi court?”
At first the man gave no response. He merely stared back at Dusaan, without a trace of the skepticism he had exuded just moments before. “I … I never wished to serve, my … your…”
“Call me Weaver.”
“Yes, Weaver, thank you. And besides, Eandi nobles seek out gleaners. They want their ministers to be able to see the future.”
“Quite right, Creved. Isn’t it fascinating,” he went on, speaking to all of them now, “that the Eandi value us precisely for the magic we know to be the least potent. Don’t get me wrong. Gleaning is a talent, and gleaners will be as welcome as all other Qirsi in the new world we’re building. But the Eandi want gleaners for their courts and for their festival tents. Yet gleaning is not one of the deep magics-all of us know this. Perhaps they do as well. They fear our powers. They use what they can, but they fear the rest, which is why for nearly nine hundred years, they have made us their servants, their entertainers, objects of curiosity and contempt.” He smiled. “Well, those days are over.” He looked at the healer again. “You said something else that interested me, Creved. You said that you never wished to serve in their courts. Why not?”
The man shrugged, looking afraid, as if he thought that he had said something wrong. “I don’t know, Weaver. I just … I don’t know.”
“It’s all right, Creved. For too long, our people have willingly given ourselves over to the Eandi. We need more men and women like this fine healer, who can see the virtue of using magic simply because it is our gift, the source of our distinctiveness and our strength.”
Was it just his imagination, or were the others staring at this old healer with admiration and envy, wishing that they, too, might earn the Weaver’s praise? He eyed the men and women Nitara had brought him, divining their powers, searching for any who looked like they might betray him. Like Creved, most of them appeared so awed by the notion of serving a Weaver that Dusaan knew he had nothing to fear from them. One or two remained wary, but this was to be expected.
Nearly all of those standing before him possessed only one or two powers; a few wielded three. Many of the men and women were healers, and a good number of the others possessed fire magic. There were, of course, quite a few gleaners. And a small number wielded the greater magics. Several had mists and winds, a few, like Creved, had language of beasts, and seven were shapers.
“All of you will serve our cause in some capacity. For many of you that will mean helping to protect and maintain this palace. Others among you will accompany me across the Strait of Wantrae to Eibithar, where we will wield our powers as one and destroy the armies of the Eandi courts. Whatever your role in this struggle, I promise you that you will be paid in gold, that your lives will be better than you ever imagined possible under the emperor’s rule, and that someday your children will thank you for what you do now.” He smiled again. “Are you with me?”
“Yes, Weaver!” they answered as one, their voices resounding off the courtyard walls.
He turned to Nitara, B’Serre, and the other ministers. “Find quarters for these people and then assign them tasks. We need some in the kitchens,” he said, lowering his voice. “And others, those with fire power, should be stationed as guards at the gates and in the prison tower.”
Nitara nodded. “Yes, Weaver.” She often spoke for the others, almost as if he had made her one of his chancellors. He didn’t mind, but he found it somewhat curious, and he wondered if her fellow ministers and chancellors thought that she and Dusaan were lovers.
He pointed out the seven shapers. “Bring them to me. They’ll be sailing with us to Eibithar. Oh, and send a healer to Harel. He’s hurt himself again.”
Dusaan returned to the imperial chamber a short time later, and was joined soon after by Nitara and the seven shapers. Five of them were old for his people-thirty years old at least, as far as he could tell, and of the two who were younger, one struck him as being somewhat less than eager to pledge himself to the Weaver’s cause. This man was watching him now, a slight smirk on his oval face. He wore his white hair long and pulled back from his face, and his eyes were so pale as to be ghostlike.
“You,” Dusaan said, nodding toward him. “What’s your name?”
“B’Naer, High Chancellor.”
Nitara cast a quick look Dusaan’s way, seeming to gauge his response. The Weaver hadn’t explicitly instructed the other Qirsi not to use his old title, but he felt that they should have known. Normally he wouldn’t have tolerated such an indiscretion but in this case he decided to give the man a bit of latitude. A very little bit.
“That’s all? Just B’Naer?”
The man shifted his weight from one foot to the other, an amused look on his face. “B’Naer jal Shenvesse.”
“And from the looks of you I’d say you’re a peddler.”
“Close enough.”
The Weaver raised an eyebrow. “A brigand then.”
The smile vanished from his face.
“It’s all right, B’Naer. Whatever laws you’ve broken were Eandi laws. That’s not to say that I won’t deal harshly with your kind now that I lead the realm, but consider this your one opportunity to change the course of your life, to choose a brighter path, if you will.” Dusaan crossed to the emperor’s throne and sat. “Tell me, B’Naer, why do you think you’re here? What do you think you have in common with these other six people?”
“I don’t know? Are they brigands, too?”
One of them, an older woman, actually laughed out loud.
“No,” the Weaver said with a smile. “They’re not brigands.” He eyed the man for a moment longer, and when he shook his head, Dusaan looked at the others. “Do any of you know?”
“You know what powers we possess,” the woman answered at last. “Are we all shapers?”
The Weaver smiled. “And your name?”
“Qidanne ja Qed, Weaver. I’m a healer in the city.”
This name he did know. She wasn’t just a healer-she was the most renowned healer in all of Curtell. On several occasions the emperor had asked her to serve in the palace. Each time she had refused him, claiming that her duties as a healer called her into the countryside too often, and that some of those to whom she ministered would not trust another healer. Dusaan had long wondered if these excuses had served to mask her dislike of the emperor. Now he felt certain that they had.
“We’re all honored to have you with us, Qidanne. Your reputation precedes you.”
“Thank you, Weaver.”
“You’re right, of course. All of you are shapers, and as such, will prove invaluable to our movement in battle.”
“In battle?” she said, frowning. “I’m no warrior, Weaver. Surely you understand that all to which I’ve devoted my life is at odds with the very notion of armed conflict.”
“I do understand that, healer. But I know as well that the fate of our people rests with our ability to defeat the combined might of the Eandi armies. I’ll need shapers to do that. The sooner I can destroy the enemy, the fewer of our people will need your talents.”
“I minister to Eandi as well as Qirsi, Weaver, and though I sympathize with your movement, I can’t bring myself to kill anyone, no matter the color of their eyes.”
Dusaan detested cowardice, and had he sensed in her words even a hint of pretense, he would have killed her where she stood. He could tell, however, that she spoke not out of fear of being killed herself, but rather out of a true aversion to killing others, and he knew that to force this woman to fight against her will would diminish him, not only in her eyes, but in those of the men and women around her.
