He heard a scream inside the villa. The sound was followed by a loud crash, and then the warrior was racing into the hall without further thought. The old woman screamed again, the sound coming from the kitchen, and he ran in to find her grasping the heavy wooden cooking bench, her eyes wide with horror.
Natac lifted her up in his arms and she clung to him, sobbing. Mindful of the chance of a subsequent tremor, he carried her carefully through the hall and under the open sky of the garden. There he found Fallon, who stared at them wide-eyed, trembling. “What’s happening?” demanded the gardener.
“It was a small earthquake. Don’t be frightened,” Natac replied, wondering again at this childish display of fear.
He looked across the valley to see waves rippling and churning the lake, while from nearby ravines landslides tumbled down the steep slopes. He watched until the debris rattled and rumbled to rest at the bottom of the incline, much of it spilling into the lake.
Only then did he notice that the old woman was still crying, clinging to his arms and shoulders with her head buried against his chest.
“We’re safe here,” he said. “You only have to get out of the building-the real danger is having the roof fall on your head.”
She drew a deep breath, and though her sobs softened, she still clutched him, obviously terrified.
“See,” he said, trying to calm her-and mystified as to why she was acting like such a child. “It’s gone now-and anyway, that wasn’t even a bad one.” He remembered at least a dozen earthquakes notably more violent, several of which had brought houses and temples crashing down in ruins.
“Nayve-the world moved!” said the woman with a moan.
“It hasn’t happened before?”
She pulled her face back to stare into his eyes, still holding him by the shoulders. “Circle at Center is the foundation of everything. It cannot become unbalanced!”
“The foundation of everything-even Mexico and Mictlan?” Natac was still mystified, but her terror at the quake had served to restore much of his confidence. Oddly, he felt as though he now stood upon firmer ground, while her own beliefs had been shown to be somewhat tentative.
She looked at him sharply. “Of Mexico and all Earth, yes-in a way that you will come to understand. As to Mictlan, I told you-there is no such place!”
“And the world of Nayve cannot be shaken!” he retorted, with a sense of triumph that suddenly flashed into guilt when he saw the fear in her dark eyes-eyes that were alive, and so beautiful-such a deep and perfect violet.
The truth hit him like a blow, so much that he staggered back, gaping like a fool and then shaking his head, angry and disbelieving. But those eyes moistened, glistening with sadness, and he understood.
“Miradel?” The word came out like a croak, and that sound lingered alone in the air, for the old woman just nodded mutely in reply.
T hey sat in the garden while Nayve’s night drew a curtain around them. In some back quarter of his mind, Natac remained alert for a subsequent earthquake, though the land had remained stable since that abrupt shock. Aside from this cautious awareness, his thoughts were chaotic, a jumble of questions, connections, and utter disbelief.
He looked at the old woman again-of course she was Miradel. How could it have taken him so long to recognize her? Her face had the same shape, a perfect oval with the three-petaled flower of cheeks and chin. Furthermore, those violet eyes were unique, he felt certain, in all the cosmos. True, the bronzed skin had darkened, and patterns of wrinkles webbed across her temples and her cheeks-and the musical voice had a harder edge to it, a sound that had been lacking in her soft, welcoming tones of the night before. Or had it been so recently, after all?
“How long was I asleep?” he asked, breaking the long silence. “Years? That you became an old woman in that time?”
“No-one night. Just one night.”
“A night-” He leaned back, bracing himself with arms propped on the stone bench. Overhead was the night sky of Nayve-and the sight jarred him every time he’d looked up since sunset-that is, since the Hour of Darken.
The sun had receded to a bright point at the zenith of the heavens. Brighter than any star he had ever seen, even than the comet that had wandered across the skies of Mexico just before his death, it was still just a star, surrounded by the blackness of the beyond. On Nayve, as on Earth, the vault of the night was speckled with stars. But here the stars shifted position before his eyes, slowly evolving through a dance as chillingly unnatural as it was beautiful.
“How long is a night in Nayve? Will I be old with tomorrow’s dawn?”
Miradel smiled wistfully and gently shook her head. “The Lighten Hour, we call it. And no, you will not. Our nights are much the same as nights in your own world. Just long enough for a thorough rest-though I sense, Warrior Natac, that you are not ready for sleep.”
He stood up, feeling his confusion push as anguish into his limbs, his voice. “You said you brought me here with magic? What kind of magic-and which is the real Miradel? The maiden last night, or-you?”
She straightened, lifted her chin with pride as she glared at him again. “Both are really me-or the other was me, in precise truth. It is the cost of the spell… I aged from the casting.” Her eyes flashed something-anger, or pride, he couldn’t tell. “In the end, I will die.”
Natac knelt before her, staring into her eyes. “We all die!”
Now Miradel smiled again, the sad smile that had changed not at all from the young woman to the old. “Not in Nayve… in the Fourth Circle humans-those lucky few who are called here-live forever. You will have centuries of youthful vigor before you-freedom from disease, or any infirmity.”
“You-you would have had such a life, if not for the casting of this spell?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” He stood and walked away from her, then whirled back. He was filled with awe, and a terrible sense of guilt. “Why did you do it?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Because Nayve needs you-and because your world, your part of Earth, has so little time left.”
“What’s going to happen to my world?” he asked. He was surprised to find that, despite his resentment and suspicion, he believed her.
“Your warriors will meet warriors from a different land-invaders who, in a few short years, will destroy the nations, the places you have known.”
“My sons-their children, their wives-killed?” Natac asked.
“I cannot say yet… the threads have not yet been woven into the Worldweaver’s Tapestry. Still, the pattern is set-the result is inescapable, as it applies to nations. When you ask about individuals, we cannot say until the pictures are before us.”
“Who will invade Tlaxcala? Even the Aztecs have failed, every time they tried.”
“These new enemies will destroy the Aztecs even more thoroughly than they will your own realm-again, it is inevitable.”
“Are they gods?”
“No-they are humans from another part of Earth. People of white skin and hairy faces-larger than your own people, and bearers of deadly tools.”
“Humans-of Earth. But where do they come from?”
“Perhaps it will help you to meet some of them-here, in Nayve.”
“Other warriors-like me?”
Miradel nodded. “There are two of them near here, both brought years, in fact centuries, ago. They, like you, were summoned by druid magic, a spell cast by one who sacrificed her youth to weave the spell. I will take you to meet them some time after the Lighten Hour-they have developed the habit of sleeping very late.”
Natac found that he didn’t have that trait, at least not yet. He slept alone on the fur-lined bed, and awakened refreshed to feast on a breakfast of eggs, rice, and the beverage called “milk.” The druid promised to describe to him the source of that nectar, but the explanation had been put off by other matters. Fallon was there, too. After the meal he took the dishes, cast a few droplets of water across them, and made the same puffing gesture with which he had watered the garden. This time water sprayed vigorously across the dirty plates, and moments later they were clean.