Prophecy (3 page)

Lorand nodded with his intensity fractionally lessened, and Vallant was glad that he’d lied. He didn’t really expect these people to surprise them, but Lorand would do better believing they might right up to the time they didn’t.

The meeting hall was a large building standing alone to one side of the town square, with what looked like a large public bath house diagonally across from it. In the middle of the square was a small fountain with the alarm bar hanging from a post next to it, and people were milling around near the fountain in groups, watching everyone who walked toward the hall. It looked like not everyone had been invited to the meeting, which wasn’t a very good sign of progress to come.

Vallant let Lorand walk into the hall half a step ahead of him, a privilege his group brother was more than entitled to. The people who awaited them had no way of knowing just how hard things had been for Lorand, at least as hard as Vallant found walking into the building to be. But at least there were windows lining the big room on either side, windows that could be reached rather easily…

“You been learnin’ bad habits in th’ big city, boy,” the one named Mollit Feldin said to Lorand from where he stood at the front of the room. “This ain’t no place fer females, so you jest send ’em on home an’ then we c’n get this here meetin’ goin’.”

“What’s the matter, Mollit, are you too old to remember my name?” Lorand countered as they all walked slowly toward where the man and some of the others waited for them. The benches were only half full, Vallant noticed, which meant the people hanging around the fountain in the square had been told they weren’t allowed at the meeting.

“Just to help you remember, old man, my name is Lorand,” Lorand continued calmly and quietly. “And any man with sense would have asked
why
these ladies are with us, not just told us to get rid of them. So since you’ve proven you
have
no sense, why don’t you sit down and just listen for a change. I know the odds are against it, but you just might learn something.”

“You watch yer mouth, boy!” Feldin snapped, his skin darkening at the chuckling some of the others were doing. “I ain’t no old man, an’—”

“And I’m not a boy,” Lorand interrupted, now standing directly in front of the man—who wasn’t quite as big as Lorand. Vallant’s groupmate’s voice had been strong and hard, showing a self confidence Lorand probably didn’t completely feel, but it was the outer show that Feldin reacted to. The farmer wiped his lips on the back of one hand, glared balefully, but didn’t say another word.

“You’re a boy compared t’ us,” the one named Idroy Welt said mildly, drawing Lorand’s attention to where he stood, next to Feldin. “We didn’t aim to give no insult, Lorand, but you gotta understand—Mollit here’s got almost as big a farm as me, so he’s entitled to his say. Jest like everybody’s got the right.”

“An’ me especially,” another voice said, causing Vallant and the others to look around with Lorand. A big man had stood up among the benches, one who looked very much like Lorand, and Vallant could almost feel the increased tension in his group brother. “I got the right t’have m’say, and I got the right t’call ya boy.”

“You gave up the right to call me anything at all, Pa,” Lorand said after a very short pause, the words bitter. “When you put your own wants about my life ahead of mine, you stopped being kin to me. You might want to think about what would have happened to the people in this district if I’d done the same thing, and run to save my own neck without giving a damn about yours. There
is
an army heading this way, destroying everything in its path, and if you people choose not to believe it, your deaths will be on your own heads.”

“That’s somethin’ we gotta talk about, but not till everybody’s here,” Welt said, looking troubled. “Ravis ain’t showed up yet, an’ we can’t start till he does.”

“That man Ravis Grund won’t
be
showing up,” Jovvi put in calmly, drawing everyone’s attention. “When he left the square earlier, his intentions were perfectly clear. If he hasn’t left the district already, he’ll be doing it shortly. He lied about not knowing about the army, and he lied about coming to this meeting. He’s getting out as fast as he can with as much as he can, abandoning all of you and running back to the people he works for.”

There was a brief but very thick silence, and then Welt said, “Don’t mean t’be doubtin’ yer word, ma’am, but how could you know thet? Ravis ain’t the brightest nor the bravest, but I ain’t never seen him run frum a threat.”

“An’ he’s one a
us
, not sum bloody outsider,” Feldin added with a growl. “You got a real nerve, girl, talkin’ ’bout folks you ain’t near as good as—”

“Close your mouth, Mollit,” Lorand said in his own growl, one that did more to chill than Feldin’s. “Dama Hafford is ten times better than any mudfoot in this room, so you close your mouth and keep it closed. She’s also a High talent in Spirit magic, so if she says Ravis is gone, you can bet the farm you don’t own on it.”

Shocked exclamations sounded around the room, and Vallant saw the expressions of fear and revulsion that accompanied them. For that reason
he
stepped forward, to stand beside Lorand.

“If you’re wonderin’ about whether the lady is right, you might send someone over to Grund’s house,” he suggested, also keeping his voice mild. “But get someone from the street to go, because we’re ready to tell you the things you need to know. We’ll also probably be leavin’ not long after the tellin’, because we know that army’s real even if the bunch of you refuse to believe it.”

“Refe, go grab one a th’ boys outside,” Welt ordered after a brief hesitation, speaking to a man toward the back of the hall. “Tell ’m t’ knock at Ravis’s door, an’ if he don’t get a answer he’s t’ try openin’ th’ door an’ goin’ inside. If he hasta do thet, he’s t’ hightail it back here fast as he c’n run.”

The man addressed nodded and got to his feet, then headed for the door out of the hall. As soon as Welt saw the nod, his attention turned back to Vallant.

“We’ll be listenin’ to whut you gotta say, but first we’d like them ladies outta here,” he said, the words very neutral. “In things like this here, a man don’t wanna have t’watch whut he says ’cause there’s ladies about t’take offense. We don’t mean no insult, but…”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t oblige you on that point,” Vallant said while Lorand hesitated with a disturbed expression. “And you’d all better sit down, because the ladies are part of the rather long story. You’ll want to know how we found out the things we did, and when we tell you you’ll understand how everything fits. Are you ready to listen?”

Welt saw that the man Refe was on his way back into the hall from the door, so he nodded before choosing a place on a bench to sit. Feldin hesitated a moment longer, the resentful expression on his face saying he would have preferred to make more trouble, but caution won in the end. He, too, found a place to sit down, as did Vallant’s groupmates. But his groupmates sat on chairs on the short dais, leaving the plain, battered old table as a place for
him
to perch. Lorand’s father, with an odd expression on his face, had long ago resumed his seat, so there was no reason not to start.

“To begin with,” Vallant said, “our empire has been tryin’ for some time to take over the countries of Astinda and Gracely. We haven’t seen Gracely, but just over the border into Astinda there’s nothin’ left but destruction and death. They killed the land and murdered the people, and even left some of the people, still alive, hangin’ as a warnin’ to other Astindans. The army that’s comin’ here means to get revenge for all that, and we were told by somebody who saw it that they aren’t lettin’ any of ours live even if they surrender.”

Another mutter arose among his listeners, a very disturbed one, but not everyone was equally impressed.

“So
you
say,” Feldin sneered out, obviously prepared to do nothing but cast doubt. “Sounds like a lotta bull t’me, since there ain’t no way t’know fer sure ’thout takin’
yer
word fer it.”

“There are two ways to know for sure,” Vallant countered, showing how unimpressed he was by the fool of a man. “You can talk to a lot of our people, most of whom spent a lot of time bein’ forced to work for the damn nobles runnin’ the army. They can tell you what sickenin’ things they were made to do before the Astindan army forced them to retreat, or you can ignore what everyone says and just stick around. In your case I’d recommend stickin’ around, since the world becomes a better place to live every time a damn fool like you gets himself killed.”

Feldin surged to his feet bellowing, his fists clenched and ready to do some battering, but suddenly all his rage and insult disappeared. He just stood there blinking and silent, and Vallant smiled faintly.

“If the rest of you are wonderin’ what’s wrong with him, it should be obvious,” he said to the shaken men in the audience. “We already told you that Dama Hafford is a High in Spirit magic, and this is no time to let an imbecile start a fight. Personally, though, I’m gettin’ really tired of tryin’ to help a bunch of people who are too stupid to know they
need
the help. If you’d rather be rid of us than hear what we have to tell, just say so. Since we mean to leave anyway once the horses are rested and fed, we’ll be gone before you remember we’rearound.”

Most of their audience seemed to like the idea of being rid of these dangerous and awful interlopers, but Idroy Welt, despite being shaken himself, stood up and shook his head.

“No, we
don’t
want ’em gone yet,” he said to his friends and neighbors, looking around at them. “Mollit asked fer handlin’ like she done, jest like usual. He don’t think, he jumps, and this ain’t no time fer jumpin’. If’n we don’t listen, we culd lose more’n our land, so we
are
gonna hear whut they gotta say.”

Again most of the audience wasn’t terribly pleased, but none of them argued or got up to leave as Welt resumed his seat. Vallant was somewhat surprised, just the way he’d told Lorand he’d be.

“All right, then let’s get to it,” Vallant agreed aloud. “We should start from the beginning, since every one of us up here went through the same thing. It—”

“Please, wait just a minute!” a voice called, and Vallant saw that a man had just entered the hall. He was fairly tall and lean, but what marked him out from the other men in the room was the fact that he wore Gan Garee style clothing, rather than the rough work clothes the others had on. “Forgive me for interrupting, but I only just found out about this meeting. I don’t know what’s been said here so far, but I would appreciate a word in private with your group before anything else is added.”

“And why would that be, Master Lugal?” Lorand asked, getting to his feet again to do it. “Are you afraid that we’regoing to warn these people not to send any more of their sons and daughters to Gan Garee no matter how strong you say they are? Well, that’s just what we do mean to tell them, because of those sent to test for High practitioner, a large number die during that obscene thing called a test. Those who survive at the wrong time of year, like when the nobility has no need of dummy challengers for their Seated Highs, they’redrugged and sent as virtual slaves to the various armies. Well, now that they’ve been told, is there anything ‘private’ left to discuss?”

Lorand’s calling the man Master Lugal told Vallant that the newcomer was the resident Guild man, the one who found strong Middles and potential Highs and sent them to Gan Garee. That would have caused Vallant’s anger to rise as high as Lorand’s, except for the fact that Lugal had gone pale with shock and now stood holding to the back of a bench. The man obviously needed the support to keep from falling, and it took a moment before he was able to shake his head.

“That can’t be true!” he denied in a husky whisper, the look in his eyes haunted. “I can’t have been sending young people to death or slavery! They would have told me…!”

“I get the impression that you aren’t lying,” Lorand said in a gentler way after a brief moment. “And since Jovvi confirms that, I’ll just say how sorry I am for you. I wasn’t lying either, and you don’t have to take my word for it. Talk to the rest of the people we’rewith, and they’ll tell you the same thing because they also went through it. The nobility has it arranged that way so they won’t have any trouble keeping the empire under their collective thumbs.”

“What was that you said about dummy challengers for the Seated Highs?” a voice called out from the far left side of the room. “My boy went to Gan Garee two years ago, and if
he
faced one of those Highs, it was no dummy challenge.”

This time Vallant joined Lorand in hesitating to answer, touched by the loving pride which had been in the man’s voice. It’s hard for another man to trample on something like that, but it seemed that women didn’t see it quite the same.

“They’re
all
dummy challenges, because the Seated Highs are no such thing,” Tamrissa said with a sniff of disdain. “I faced the Seated High in Fire magic, unofficially, of course, because he thought I was drugged and helpless. He was no better than an ordinary Middle, and when he tried to match
my
strength he burned himself out. He was a noble, like they all are, so he never
won
his place. They gave it to him, and then they cheated to help him keep it.”

This time the muttering sounded more like an uproar in the making, anger and indignation mixed thoroughly throughout. Vallant wondered if the emotions were directed toward the nobility or toward Tamrissa for saying what she had, and a moment later he found out.

“Why ain’t I s’rprised?” Idroy Welt demanded of no one in particular, then he eyed the people who sat or stood together in front of the audience. “So th’ first lady’s a High in Spirit magic an’ th’ second in Fire magic. Thet mean you men’r th’ same?”

“I’m Earth magic, Vallant there is Water magic, and Rion over here is Air magic,” Lorand replied after a short but obvious pause. “Do you understand now why the ladies are with us?”

The uproar suddenly quieted, almost as if someone had closed a heavy door on the noise. They did understand—or were afraid that they did—even though Lorand had been gentle in breaking it to them.