" 'They are content,' the Lady said, 'but I see with the sight of eagles and I listen with the heart of an ox, and so I know that in the times to come the most beloved among the guardians will betray her companions.'
" 'Is there no hope, then, for the land and its people?'
" 'One who is an outlander may save them, but I prefer to put my trust in what I know. Therefore, I give to you, my daughter, a second gift, so that ordinary folk who live and die in the natural way can also oversee the law of the land.'
"And she brought out the eagles, so great in size that they might carry a person.
"The girl asked, 'If even the holy guardians can be corrupted, what of ordinary folk?'
"But the Lady of Beasts had already departed.
"Yet Hasibal the Formless One waited half in darkness and half in light, unseen until now.
" 'That is the nature of the offering bowl, child, that it can be full, or empty, or partially full, and yet change in an instant from any of these states to another. Thus do corruption and virtue wax and wane within the heart. Yet it is the dutiful strength and steady hand of those who live and die while about the ordinary tasks of the world that creates most of that which we call good and harmonious.'
"After this, she was alone.
"So the Guardians came to walk in the Hundred. In this manner also came the reeves and their eagles who, with the blessing of the Guardians, established order in the Hundred one village and one clan at a time."
The man's voice ceased.
He lowered his hands to his side.
The Hieros said, more humbly, "Who are you?"
When he did not answer, she said, "The Guardians are lost. Gone."
"No," he said, his voice as calming as the cry of the night-reed. "They are not gone."
He stopped abruptly and lifted his chin, tipped forward onto his toes, seeing a thing as it appeared out of the darkness. Those gathered did not need to look to know what it was, but they looked anyway, because they could not help themselves. They had to look at the young woman who had the pallor of a ghost but the heat and solidity of a living person. The moonlight made her pale hair and creamy skin seem even more uncanny and desirable. She wore a sleeveless tunic, cut short for sleeping. Even at night she wore the cloak, her only possession. The moon's light caught in the folds and ridges of the silverine cloth as she was led into the courtyard, more like a sleepwalker than a waking woman. Her escort pushed her into position and turned her to face the man.
After a moment of silence she looked up and saw him. She saw, who never took note of anyone or anything. She stared at him, and an expression-like hope, like life-transformed her face. Half the assembled gasped, and the other half sighed, and the man shut his eyes and then opened them.
Her lips parted. No one here had ever heard her voice, but she spoke now in a faint, high voice as hoarse as if she had rusted it by choking down too many tears.
"Who are you?"
He offered both hands, palms up and open. "You belong with us," he said. "If you choose to come with me."
At a nod from the Hieros, the deputies stepped back. For the first time, the ghost moved of her own accord. She took one step, and a second, and a third, like a woman waking out of a nightmare who is not yet sure it is really over. She halted at arm's length from him and reached out. But she did not touch him.
She said, "I will come with you."
She lowered her hand, and waited.
"What of my payment?" demanded the Hieros, but everyone there noted that she did not try to stop the slave girl from leaving or the man from claiming her.
He spoke over the pale head of the slave. "No Hundred-born person had the right to sell this woman into your keeping, for no one owns what she has become. Seek redress from the one who dealt unfaithfully with you."
"You can be sure that I will!"
He chuckled, a man at peace with himself, and his good-natured amusement inflamed the Hieros yet more.
"You have not answered my questions! Who are you? How have you come here? Why did you tell us the Tale of the Guardians when all know that the Guardians are long ago lost, and never to be found?"
He smiled sweetly at the girl, but he replied to the Hieros, for all who live in the Hundred must answer the questions set them by the women who speak for the Merciless One. "The Guardians are not lost. But they were broken long since, sundered each from the other, and distrust and hatred and greed and envy were sown between them. The shadows have spilled out from this broken vessel, and as shadows will, they reach out to swallow the land."
"This we know!" she said fiercely. "Just now an army out of the north rode against Olossi. It was a close thing that we escaped blade and fire. For, as the tale says, an outlander saved us. There has been peace until now, but it seems to me that we will have to go to war to defend the heart of the Hundred and the laws which sustain the land."
"You are right, and you are wrong," he said.
"Often right, but rarely wrong!" she retorted.
He lifted his staff, and all cried out when a light flashed from its end, no more than a candle's spark, quickly extinguished. A wind rose, and out of the sky roiled two great shadows. The hierodules and kalos shrieked and fell back under the cover of the veranda. Only the Hieros held her ground.
Two horses seemed to leap out of the sky and come to earth in the courtyard. They had vast wings, and delicate legs, and handsomely formed heads. When the girl saw them, her mouth dropped open. She looked at the man, and he nodded. Cautiously, she ventured forward to introduce herself to the beasts with the manners of a person who feels comfortable with horses.
The Hieros touched her fingers to her forehead, in prayer.
At length, she lowered her fingers, then raised her head and looked at him. Her expression was somber. Her tone had changed. "I will be your ally, if you will trust me."
The man touched the heel of his hand to his breast in a gesture of respect as he gave a slight bow to the Hieros. "You are an honest servant, holy one, if a bit hard-hearted. Listen!"
They heard the hiss of the approaching rains over the water, but it was his voice they listened for.
"The Guardians are not lost. For here, now, stand two of us. I, who am old and weary of running and hiding. And this one, who is newly cloaked and awakened, as ignorant of what she is now as I am ignorant of who she was before she came into the Hundred."
The Hieros staggered, but caught herself on the arm of one of her deputies. The soft night rains swept over the garden, pattering among the leaves, showering a mist over them. Among the hierodules and kalos, many began to weep softly. Hearing their distress, she recovered herself, and nodded, to show he should continue.
"You are right," he said, "that we must defend the heart of the Hundred and the laws which sustain the land. But you are wrong in thinking there has been peace until now, that there has been peace in the Hundred these last many years."
"Go on." She was no longer afraid.
In his gentle smile rested the weight of long years of struggle. "The war for the soul of the Guardians has already begun."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KATE ELLIOTT is the author of more than a dozen novels, including the Novels of the Jaran and, most recently, the Crown of Stars fantasy series. King's Dragon, the first novel in that series, was a Nebula Award finalist; The Golden Key (with Melanie Rawn and Jennifer Roberson) was a World Fantasy Award finalist; Jaran was named a VOYA Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Novel of 1992, and was a Locus Recommended Science Fiction Novel of 1992. Born in Iowa and raised in Oregon, she lives in Hawaii.