Ileaha, who had started violently when Medair first spoke, gave her a strange look in return for her brief lecture on Ibisian social demeanour. "You came," she said after a moment. "I did not believe you would."
"Didn’t you?" Medair sat down, cool mist soothing the back of her neck, a hint of mildew and pigeon dung tickling her nostrils. "Why send the wend-whisper, then?"
"Because I could not search all Athere, and you wear that set-charm against traces. But I knew you would hear a wend-whisper, and I needed to find you."
"You needed to find me." Medair frowned, for she had expected more of a search than Ileaha alone. Had they not–? "Why?"
Ileaha looked down at her hands, almost guiltily. "I…perhaps you might not care to know it, but finding you was a test. At least, I think that is what he meant."
"A test?"
"I don’t know what I would have done if you had not come," Ileaha went on distractedly, clenching her hands together. "I could not think of anything to do when he asked me to find you. Sitting here, praying that you would produce yourself, I have been searching my mind for ways to find a single person in all Athere. Nothing I can imagine was possible without the aid of a dozen, a hundred others. And I thought to be a Velvet Hand."
"It could be said that it took some ingenuity to think of a wend-whisper," Medair remarked, hiding her impatience. What mattered Ileaha’s career, when Athere itself might have no future? But then, Medair was trapped by people dead for centuries. At least Ileaha was looking ahead.
"That is different altogether. You found yourself. I don’t think he would consider that I had proved myself."
"He? Who sent you to find me?"
That finally pulled Ileaha’s eyes from her hands' attempts to strangle each other. "Cor-Ibis," she said, with an unspoken of course.
"Ah. With rumours of dead and blind and spell-shocked, I should have known that he would be completely unaffected by the casting," Medair said, her voice sounding as if she were angry because she had found that she was boundlessly glad, and hated herself for it.
"Not unaffected," Ileaha said, carefully. "He was, in truth, blinded for a short while, but that…passed. Wielding so much power – no, it did not leave him unchanged."
"Cor-Ibis sent you to find me, to test you," Medair said, thrusting emotional turmoil to the background again. "Don’t tell me you finally announced that you weren’t going to be las Theomain’s secretary?"
"At such a time. Selfish, I suppose, but if this is to be the end, I don’t want to spend it running errands for Jedda las Theomain." Ileaha grimaced. "I didn’t mean to say anything. The entire Court has been chaos since they returned from Ahrenrhen, and running errands would probably be the most useful thing I could do. We are not ready for this war, and the Keridahl had better things to do than debate my wants and needs."
"Debate?" Medair stood up, a sharp, violent movement. "I doubt it, Ileaha. That one rarely needs to debate things. I have encountered his kind before, and know enough to recognise the methods." She smiled stiffly, her eyes on one of the young would-be warriors, who had gone so far as to pull her arm from the grasp of an elder and was now pushing her way steadily out of the confines of the crowd. "He tests you, certainly. Keris las Theomain was your test. I suspect the task of finding me was by way of being a reward."
Ileaha rose, and smoothed down the linen robe she wore as if it would somehow grant her control. She took a deep breath, but still sounded woefully young when she spoke.
"Why are you angry, Medair?"
By this time, Medair was no longer angry. If she were able to sustain such an emotion for any appreciable time, she would be able to focus herself around it. She continued to watch as the crowd began to break apart.
"Do you think they should stay, or go, Ileaha?" she asked, as the small group marched resolutely away from home and family. "Who preaches wisdom here? Do the young chase glory, or are they simply better able to make sacrifices?"
"I think both of them are right," Ileaha replied, with the air of one unable to follow the conversation. "There is no clear path, and wanting glory does not lessen the fact that they are needed."
"Or change the impossibility of the task." Medair offered the confused woman an apologetic smile. "We are alike, I think, Ileaha, for neither of us trusts ourselves. Did Cor-Ibis tell you merely to find me, or to bring me back?"
"To find you. But returning with you was implied, I think. You don’t wish to come back?"
"Not really. But I don’t suppose it will make much difference."
"No." Fear and sorrow chased personal concerns from Ileaha’s eyes. "There is little hope, though few dare to say that the end is a forgone conclusion. The world has been remade, it seems, to Estarion’s specifications. He wanted victory over us, and the fire of wild magic he caused has given him just that. And made him monstrous."
"Do you think he knows?" Medair asked, following Ileaha as she started out of the square. "Perhaps being the cause of the Conflagration will have allowed him to escape the changes."
"I don’t know. There’s so much we’re ignorant of, in this new world! We cannot even guess who this person is he seeks."
"What does the Mersian Herald say?"
"That the Isle of Clouds is a sacred place in the Shimmerlan, where, as far as she knows, no-one lives. Or, rather, it is the home of Voren Dreamer, Lady Night, also called Lady Death, and that no mortal would dare go there."
"Lady Night?"
"One of this Four she keeps talking about. Maddening, the way things have been reshaped. The AlKier and your Farak have been joined by two others gods. Just conjured up, for everyone to believe in. There is, and always has been, only one God. The AlKier has no equal, and shares Her burden with no others."
Ileaha sounded personally offended by the suggestion, and Medair was forced to smile. She had never heard of the Isle of Clouds, let alone Voren Dreamer, but had little doubt who it was King Estarion demanded be surrendered to him. Possibly, Cor-Ibis had made a similar deduction, though he could not understand how important the woman he had geased might be to the coming battle. He had not heard the result of the Decians' true-speaking.
She didn’t know why she was willing to go back, or what her answers would be if he questioned her. How could she judge the right thing to do, when her feelings were so suspect? They were all Ibisian. The pale invaders. White Snakes.
She wished she wasn’t so glad he was alive.
Chapter Eighteen
"Kel ar Corleaux."
Medair looked up and found Avahn standing in the doorway of the sitting room. "So formal?"
"I didn’t know if you’d still allow me use of your name," he replied, with a solemn smile.
Listening to Telsen’s perfidious song seemed aeons ago. "I’m not angry with you, Avahn."
"No. Disappointed." He sighed, and sat down opposite her. It was necessary for him to make a minute adjustment to the sleeve of his robe of shimmering dark blue before meeting her eyes. "I apologise, Medair. I’d told you that same day that I wouldn’t keep treating you like a puzzle it was my privilege to solve, and then did precisely that. I’m not ordinarily so ill-mannered."
"No?" she asked, then shook her head. "It doesn’t matter, Avahn. We will forget it happened. Perhaps, instead, you can explain to me why the Ibisian Court tolerates a song with such a subject? Waiting for the hero of the conquered to return and drive you out? Even if it is Telsen’s masterwork, I find it difficult to understand why it hasn’t been banned in Athere."