Finally the envoy grimaced and jerked his head sideways. "Come to my rooms, then. I will hear you." He headed toward a nearby staircase, and An'desha followed him willingly.
Jarim's rooms were precisely as An'desha had thought they might be; spare by Valdemaran standards, with most of the furniture gone, but quite luxurious by the standards of one who lived all of his life in a tent. At Jarim's gesture, An'desha took a seat on a flat cushion on the floor, automatically dropping into the cross-legged position of anyone born in the tents. Jarim's mouth twitched; obviously he hadn't thought An'desha could even manage the seat on the cushion, much less the posture that marked a Shin'a'in the moment he sat.
Interesting. I could almost believe that this man has not bothered to learn a single thing about any of the people here! Is that possible? Can he have been sent off so ill-prepared?
Perhaps that was why he had been so willing to jump to conclusions about Karal and An'desha. If so—and if he would listen with his mind open at least a little—this might be easier than An'desha had thought.
"What do you know of me?" An'desha demanded.
Jarim paused, then shook his head, as if to say that there was not much he could state truly. "That you claim Shin'a'in blood, that you are paired with that too-pretty Tale'edras sorcerer, that you have the white hair of a sorcerer yourself. That allegedly you had a hand in building the protections which now keep the mage-storms at bay."
An'desha closed his eyes for a moment. He knows nothing. We assumed too much. We thought that someone would have told him about all of us, and yet he has been working in complete ignorance, using whatever he happened to pick up in conversation and working it into the skewed and incomplete view of the situation he has built with poor information. It seemed impossible, insane that anyone would have sent an envoy off so poorly briefed.
Then again, this was a Shin'a'in envoy. There were plenty of folk among the Clans who viewed anyone dwelling off the Plains with suspicion. He might not have felt it necessary to actually learn anything about the people with whom he was working. He might have decided that since his only duty was to represent the needs of the People, any such details were unnecessary.
But how to tell him what he needed to know in a way that would make him believe it? He is less like the Healer and more like that stiff-spined old bear, Vorkela, the shaman of my Clan. Then he knew how to present his story—and Karal's—in the one way that such a close-minded individual would listen to.
He altered his position a trifle, taking the poised, yet relaxed seat of a shaman about to tell a traditional history; Jarim responded automatically to the posture without thinking, taking a counter-attitude of subservient reception.
And he didn't even realize he was doing it! The positioning of his own body would influence his mind; already An'desha had established who was to be the "teacher," and he had not yet spoken a word!
He began his own tale with the traditional opening words and cadence of such a history. And although they had been speaking in the tongue of Valdemar, he spoke now in the language of the Dhorisha Plains.
"Here is a tale; hear it with your heart, for it is as true as the Hand of the Star-Eyed and as sure."
Through half-slitted eyes, he saw Jarim start, his own eyes (pen with surprise that An'desha not only knew the words, but knew the cadence with which they were chanted. "In the time when the Clans served a sorcerer called the Mage of Silence, in the time before the Plains existed and the Shin'a'in served to guard them, the great enemy of the Kal'enedral was Ma'ar, the Dark Adept."
Only a few of the traditional histories began with those words, but An'desha was about to add to them.
"When the Mage of Silence died, it is said that Ma'ar perished with him in the Great Cataclysm that formed the Plains. This is known and chanted among the Clans; what was not known until this very generation was that although Ma'ar's body died, his spirit did not—nor did it go to be weighed and judged. Ma'ar was a sorcerer of great power and greater evil, and he had discovered a way to cheat death." Jarim now was torn between fascination and impatience—fascination, because this literally was all new to him, and impatience because he could not see what this had to do with the present day. Nevertheless, long habit held him silent, for one did not interrupt a shaman in the midst of telling a tale, even if one did not see the point of it.
"He had found a way to hide his spirit, his soul-self, in a pocket of this world," An'desha continued, phrasing the truth in a way that Jarim would grasp. "There it would wait until a male child of his blood proved that it had the Gift of magic power by trying the spell that called down fire. At that moment, the door of Ma'ar's hiding place would open, and he would rush forth, possessing the child and obliterating its own soul. Then he would shape the body of the child to be that of a man of full years, and he would stride forth into the world in possession of all of his old, dark knowledge and powers."
Jarim forgot himself and tradition enough to interrupt. "But—this is the blackest of sins!" he cried, leaning forward to emphasize his words, his hands clenched on his knees. "This is the purest of evil!
"And in these new shapes Ma'ar wrought more evil still," An'desha said calmly. "Taking care always to sire many children and broadcast them upon the land, so that there might always be another of his blood with the Gift for him to possess when he had worn out the body he had stolen. We knew him, often and often, for his hatred of the Mage of Silence extended to the People. He raised one eyebrow shrewdly, for in his memories was a particular "incarnation" that had made for much weeping among the tents of Jarim's own Clan in the long-ago. "Perhaps you know the name of Sar'terixa the Mad, whose evil caused the deaths of half of the young warriors of the Cat? That was Ma'ar, in the body he had stolen of a young mage of Kata'shin'a'in.
"So; Ma'ar did this, and it was of great evil. The lives he stole were many, although there were times when a suitable child did not appear for generations. Then there was born to the Bear Clan a halfblood child, of a Shin'a'in father who called the boy An'desha."
Jarim's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. This was encouraging, and An'desha continued. "Through the blood of his mother, An'desha had the gift for magic power, which is a thing forbidden among the Clans, but more than that, he was of the blood of Ma'ar's last incarnation, for the poor maiden was the child of rape although she knew it not. An'desha was a foolish boy, although he meant no harm to anyone; when he knew he had the gift of magic, he hid it as long as he dared. He feared the path of the shaman, but he feared more the loss of his gift, for in many ways he was less than ordinary, and this was all that set him apart. So he hid his gift until he could hide it no more, and then he ran away, intending to seek the Tale'edras and learn the use of his powers among the Kin-Cousins."
Jarim shook his head. "But why did he hide it and then run away?" the envoy asked in honest puzzlement. "Surely if he had gone to his leaders and told them he could not follow the path of the shaman nor give up the magic, they would have sent him there with a proper escort. It is no sin to seek the Kin-Cousins if one is unfortunate enough to bear that gift. I would send my own son to the Hawkbrothers if he wished it so badly."