Something gone, something that had been hidden deep within that valley in the black stone reaches of the Ring of Fire. Something she wished with all her heart she could reach.
Then it was Thorn’s eyes she looked into. She felt drained, as if this cave and all in it was an indistinct dream. As if she had been torn away from reality. Thorn waited, and when she really looked at him, she saw that he, too, had seen the vision. And Meatha—she looked up to see Meatha’s flushed and trembling face.
Anchorstar stood a little way from them, waiting. They went to him, stood before him. 1 am a Child of Ynell, Zephy thought, shaken. Nothing can ever be the same, nothing . . .
“Yes,” Anchorstar said at last, “Nothing will ever be the same. You are Children of Ynell, and you are not to be afraid.”
No, Zephy thought with surprise. Fear was not a part of this; this was beyond fear. “And there are others,” Anchorstar added quietly. “Perhaps many. In Burgdeeth there are children who wait for you, though they know not what they wait for. All of Ere may one day depend on the Children of Ynell. Others have done their share before you, and now it is your turn. If you so choose. But it will be more painful than you know.
“And it may be,” he added slowly, “that time is running out.”
I should challenge Anchorstar, Zephy thought suddenly, and now was shocked at herself. But Tra. Hoppa had taught her welclass="underline" to take nothing she was told as absolute truth until she had sought it out for herself. Yet she could not challenge him, there was not room in her. If this were to be a lie, then she would have to see it in its own time, in its own way. She could see naught but truth in this man, truth in the visions he gave them. “I am no god,” he said, laughing at Meatha’s unspoken thought. “I am mortal just as you. But a stubborn mortal, child. A mortal with something of your own talents, though latent in many ways. Though I can speak to you, my powers are not constant. They need the help that comes when I speak to another with the talent. For the gifts vary. And you must know that the seeing is stronger close at hand. It is a rare Child, indeed, who can speak at any distance. And a rarer one, still, who can read of the future as you have done, Meatha. The power is a force that, for most of us, takes close proximity, as if it is a spark that falls, dying, at a distance.
“And the power is stronger in these Waytheer years, when the star is close overhead. The star’s very presence seems to give a strength that is needed.”
“If the power is stronger in the Waytheer years,” Thorn said thoughtfully, “and if the Luff’Eresi can be seen more clearly then, are the two connected?”
“They seem to be connected. But there is too much that we do not know. Who knows, even, what a god is? Who knows what we ourselves are or are not? Perhaps the force that put us here has woven an intricacy beyond our understanding, beyond intention of our ever understanding.”
“Tra. Hoppa told us once,” Zephy said slowly, “that we can only see a very small portion of what there is to see or know. But that—that when the Landmasters deliberately prevented us from seeing, from trying to see, they were committing a sin. And that people who did not try to see were sinning, too.”
“Perhaps I should have said,” Anchorstar corrected himself, “beyond intention of our easy understanding. Perhaps we were meant to question and to seek after answers that would not come easily, that would stretch our minds in the seeking, stretch our very souls.” He paused and studied her; but the picture in his mind was of Tra. Hoppa, so that Zephy stared back in surprise.
“Yes, I know Tra. Hoppa,” Anchorstar said, answering her silent question. ‘Tra. Hoppa is an old and trusted friend. I saw her in the crowd on Market Day, and she saw me of course, but we dared not speak. To cast suspicion on Tra. Hoppa in that way would have been more than foolish. To go to her home secretly, watched as I was, would have been too risky. We will meet again, perhaps. I would like that; a meeting in safety, where she is not jeopardized. Do you not know her story?”
They shook their heads.
“Come then, let us sit by the fire. I will make a meal for you and tell you her history.” He led them to the fire and brought out cushions from the wagon, then began to carve off slices of the roasting haunch and lay them on new bread. As steam rose from the meat and the juices soaked into the bread, Zephy found she was ravenous.
When they had satisfied their first hunger and were content to eat more slowly, Anchorstar settled back against the cave wall and began to speak quietly of Tra. Hoppa.
“In Carriol when I was a young man, Tra. Hoppa and her husband lived on a promontory overlooking the sea, a wild place with the breakers crashing below. There was always a hearthfire that was welcoming, and they harbored Children of Ynell from all the more primitive countries. Children come to Carriol because there they could be free. The Children would stay there until they could find a place to work, a place to live, a bit of land to farm, or until they went on, perhaps to the unknown lands.
“Then Tra. Hoppa’s husband died, and she left this work to another. How she came to Burgdeeth is a long and complicated story in itself. She was in Zandour when she heard from a trader that the old teacher of Burgdeeth had died, and that his apprentice had suddenly left Burgdeeth. It was just what she had wished for, and she came at once up to Burgdeeth. The story was that the apprentice and the teacher had had an argument, something to do with silver and with trading in Aybil. I don’t know the rest of it. She came leading a pack animal, tall-seeming in her Carriolinian gown, I was told, and regal. She acted every bit the Carriolinian lady, and let herself be entertained at the Set in a manner that no other woman in Ere, save one of Carriol, might have expected. She helped the Landmaster to fashion some of the teaching myths, as much as she loathed doing that, and made herself useful enough so that, what with his need his natural abhorrence at engaging a woman was at last overcome. I had the story from a trader, shortly after she became teacher. I have not spoken with Tra. Hoppa since she left Carriol.
“And you three know the rest. That she has taught more than she was told to teach.
“Most of Tra. Hoppa’s special children have left Cloffi. A few of them, just as you, were the Children of Ynell. They have done much good in Ere, secretly, though some have left Ere, too, and gone into the unknown lands. Perhaps one day they will return to Ere and to Cloffi. Perhaps one day, together, we can bring truth to the Cloffi cities, make Ere a place where people can rule their own lives as they were meant to do.”
“That,” he said slowly, “is why the Children of Ynell are feared in Cloffi. Because they could reveal the Landmasters’ deception, the false history, reveal the twisted religion for what it is: a tool to enslave. And the Kubalese fear the Children too, as spies. But the Kubalese are clever. They fear them, but they use them.” He looked at them for a long time. “In what I am going to ask you to do, I want to make clear that each of you must choose or reject it for yourselves. I am going to ask you to go back to Burgdeeth with deception foremost in your minds, to do the work for which you are better suited than I. You will not be suspected there as I would be.
“I want the other Children of Ynell. I want the younger ones brought away safely, the ones I feel are in greater danger now than ever before in Ere’s history. I believe the Kubalese smith is there to take them if he can, and that it will be dangerous indeed to slip them away from him. I want you three—but Zephy and Meatha most, for you are of Burgdeeth—to help me in this, to help all of Ere and your true brothers and sisters in this. But I want you only willingly. If you have doubts, I do not want your promise.