Her voice died, her hand stilled the strings, and Brandark Brandarkson went to his knees before her.
“My Lady,” he whispered, and tears fogged his voice and soaked his face.
“Don’t be silly, Brandark.” Her voice was no longer a weapon to break men’s hearts but laughing and tender, and her slender hand brushed his head. She gripped an ear and tugged, and he looked up, his own eyes suddenly laughing through his tears, and she nodded. “Better,” she said. “Now stand up, Brandark. You’ve never come to me on your knees before; I see no reason to begin now.”
He smiled and rose, and Bahzell blinked like a man waking from sleep.
“Who-?” he began, but then words failed him. He could only stare at Brandark, and the Bloody Sword touched his shoulder.
“Chesmirsa,” he said very, very softly. “The Singer of Light.”
Bahzell’s eyes flew wide, and he jerked upright. He towered two feet and more taller than the woman by the fire, but she’d put aside her mortality. He was less than a child before her, and fear and confusion boiled through him.
“I-” His voice died, and she smiled once more.
“Sit, Bahzell.” It was a request when she could have commanded, and he sank back onto the rock while he stared at her. She nodded to Brandark, and the Bloody Sword sat beside him once more, eyes fixed upon the goddess’ face. “Thank you,” she said softly. She laid her harp in her lap and leaned forward across it, still a slender, brown-haired woman and yet infinitely more, and her gentle eyes were compassionate. “I know how confused you are-both of you-and I suppose I was wicked to sneak up on you, but would you really have preferred a flash of light and a roll of thunder?” All the merriment of a universe danced in her dimpled smile, and they felt themselves smiling back. “Besides,” she added, “to be greeted as a mortal and offered the kindness of mortals-that, my friends, is a gift whose value you cannot begin to imagine.”
“But . . . but why?” Brandark asked, and the silver, rippling magic of her laugh went through them like a sword.
“Because of your friend, Brandark-and you. You were the only reason I could come here, and I have a message for you, but it’s Bahzell’s stubbornness that brings me to deliver it here and now.”
“My stubbornness?” Bahzell rumbled, and she nodded.
“Your stubbornness. Your elemental, pigheaded, stiff-necked, iron-pated, wonderful hradani stubbornness.”
“I’m not after understanding,” he said with unwonted uncertainty.
“Of course not; you’ve been fighting for months not to understand.”
“The dreams?” His voice was suddenly sharper, and she nodded again.
“The dreams.” A touch of sternness gilded her reply. “You’ve been doing the equivalent of jamming your fingers in your ears and drumming your heels on the floor long enough, Bahzell.”
“Is that what I’ve been doing, now?” he asked more challengingly. Brandark touched his arm, but the Horse Stealer’s eyes were fixed on Chesmirsa’s face, and she cocked her head.
“Of course it is. Come now, Bahzell, would we send you dreams you couldn’t understand if we had a choice?”
“I’ve no way of knowing,” he said flatly. “I’m naught but a hradani, Lady. We’ve no experience with how or what gods send to folk they care about.”
Brandark inhaled sharply, yet the goddess didn’t even wince. Sorrow dimmed her glorious eyes for just a moment, but not anger, and she sighed.
“I know how you feel about us, Bahzell Bahnakson,” she said gently, “and who are we to blame you? If you were less of what you are your anger with us would be less, as well . . . and the time to send a hradani dreams would not have come.”
“My anger, is it?” Bahzell rose once more, meeting her gaze on his own two feet, and his eyes glittered. He felt her presence, knew she was veiling her power, that if she’d loosed it upon him he could never have stood before it, but he felt no awe. Respect and wonder, yes, but not awe. His people had suffered too much-been left to suffer too much-for that.
“Yes, your anger. And your fear, Bahzell.” His eyes flashed, and she raised a graceful hand. “Not of us, but lest we ‘betray’ your people once again by turning our backs upon them. But I tell you this, Bahzell Bahnakson, and I do not lie; what happened to your people was none of our doing, and its wounds cut deeper than even you can imagine. We’ve labored for a millennium to undo it, whether you knew it or not, but the final healing must be yours. You must take the final step-you and all your people. No one else can take it for you.”
“Words, Lady,” Bahzell said stubbornly. “All I hear are words.”
“No, Bahzell. All you’ve heard so far have been my words, and this task isn’t mine. It was laid upon my brother Tomanāk-and upon you.”
“Upon me?! ”
“You. It will be no easy task, Bahzell Bahnakson, and it will bring you pain beyond your dreams, for my brother’s province is war and justice, and those are hard masters for man or god. But this is the task for which you were born, the proper challenge for your strength and courage and stubbornness, and there will be joy with the pain. Yet it’s also a burden no one can compel you to shoulder, one no unwilling back could bear even had we the right to demand your obedience.”
“Lady,” the Horse Stealer spoke slowly, each word forged of iron, “I’ll bow down to no one, god, demon, or devil. What I do, I’ll do because I choose to do it, and for no other reason.”
“I know. We know,” Chesmirsa said. “Nor is it my task to ask you to accept this burden. I ask you only to consider it, only to be willing to hear so that you can choose when the time comes. Is that so much for anyone to ask?”
Bahzell met her eyes levelly, then shook his head, almost against his will.
“Thank you,” she said softly, and her eyes told him she knew how hard it had been to make even that concession. “But as the choice must be your own, so must the decision to hear. You will be troubled by no more dreams, Bahzell Bahnakson, but think well and hard upon what I’ve told you. When the time comes that you’re ready to hear, then hear you shall. And if you never decide you’re ready, then we will leave you in the peace you desire.”
Bahzell recognized an oath when he heard one, and he bent his head in acknowledgment. The goddess gazed at him for one more moment, then turned her eyes to Brandark, and her face lightened.
“And so to you.” The Bloody Sword looked up once more, his eyes bright, and she smiled. “Ah, Brandark! Brandark! What shall I do with you?”
“Do with me, Lady?” he asked hesitantly, and her smile became an urchin’s grin.
“Alas, Brandark, you have the soul of a poet, but the other tools-!” He felt himself blush, yet her eyes lit a bubble of laughter in his heart even as she shook her head at him.
“I do my best, My Lady,” he said humbly, and she nodded.
“That you do, and always have. But the truth, Brandark, is that you were never meant for the task you thought. You are too much my brother’s, too apt to other tasks. You will never be a bard.”
“Never?” Brandark Brandarkson had never dreamed he could feel such sorrow-or that so much joy could wrap itself about the hurt-and his goddess smiled upon him.
“Never,” she said firmly. “Music you will have always, and my blessing on your joy in it, but another career awaits you. One that will demand all you have and are, and which will fill you with a joy you never knew to seek. I promise you that, and-” her eyes danced at him “-I think you’ll find it one to suit a poet’s soul. Live it well, Brandark.”
“I’ll . . . try, My Lady,” he whispered, and she touched his head once more. Then she returned her harp to its case and slung it upon her back. She shook out her plain, everyday cloak and draped it across her shoulders, and smiled at them.
“You are not quite what we expected, either of you. And yet each of you is precisely what you must be. It’s only that you’re so much more than we dared hope, my children. Farewell.”