“Is it a fair exchange then?” Jeirran demanded belligerently. “Are the arts of Sheltya fitting recompense for abandoning your blood and its land to be claimed by the daughters of our foremother’s foremother’s sister? Do you wield any more power than being able to tell whether or not my wife is finally going to prove herself fertile?”
“You always were a contentious brat, even as a child, Jeirran,” replied Aritane with disdain. “I lost count of the times Father had to dump you into that water trough yonder to quench your temper.”
They both glanced at the long hollowed stone down by the main gate, dry as a wind-scoured bone, a few leaves and fragments of blown grass caught in the unstoppered hole in its base.
Jeirran hung his head for a moment before lifting a challenging face. “So tell me, sister-that-was, what of your life?”
“I travel between the sokes, I give judgment and counsel, I spread news and share appeals for aid or alliance.” There was a dry mockery in her words. “You know full well the duty of Sheltya.”
Jeirran drummed his fingers on the wall, chewing at his beard. “We all know what Sheltya do. What interests me is what Sheltya are. What of the powers whispered of in corners at Solstice and Equinox? What of those times when one lone traveler in gray will become ten or twenty Sheltya, all appearing out of nowhere and closing a fess to travelers while they deal with a pestilence, a crime against the blood, some other offense that only they can see.”
“You know full well that it is not permitted to speak of these things,” Aritane replied in a level tone. “Why do you defy that? What do you want of me?” She might have been inquiring about the weather for all the concern in her voice.
“Have you learned the secrets of their power? Just what it is that Sheltya can do?” persisted Jeirran. “How they can leave behind them empty halls whose people are vanished or scattered mindless to the charity of others? Even when they move on and leave all behind them hale and hearty, why do none have any recollection of what has been done to save or succor them?”
“This is not your concern,” said Aritane, icier now. “Such things are only the province of those of us chosen to serve.”
“Chosen?” Jeirran folded his arms and looked at his sister. “Taken, perhaps. Better yet, stolen. I was only half a season short of my ninth year, old enough to remember your tears, your screams, your anger. I remember you clinging to your bed when they came for you, begging our mother to deny them, cursing her when she did not.” He drew a slow, measured breath. “But then I suppose that proved the justice of their claim on you, didn’t it? Your curse worked well enough; Mother dead inside a year and Father and the rest of us home from a hard season in the diggings to find all we had worked for now owed to some mousy-haired chit from the far side of the heights whom none of us had even heard of before then.”
“Mother died in childbirth, a tragedy but not uncommon.” Aritane’s hands in her lap were white at the knuckles as she clasped them together.
“In childbed as she desperately labored for a daughter to replace you, to safeguard the lands she had inherited.” Jeirran shook his head. “I did hear tell that she forbade Sheltya her bedchamber, terrified they would see true magic in the future of that child as well. Had she allowed them in, they might have been able to save both her and the babe.”
Aritane stood up. “If you have only brought me here to scratch at long-healed scars, I’ll bid you farewell, Jeirran.”
“But Sheltya wouldn’t force her, would they? They won’t use their powers, whatever they might be, without consent, will they? Whatever they can do, it’s always shackled and hedged about with secrets and mysteries and never used openly. What good is strength if it’s never used?”
Aritane was at the top of the stairs now.
“What do Sheltya say of the Elietimm, An?”
Jeirran’s taunting words halted her on the topmost tread. “What did you say?”
“Is that the correct way to say it? Shouldn’t it be Alyatimm?” Jeirran took a seat on the wall now, legs outstretched before him, leaning on his hands.
Aritane turned her head slowly. “What have you heard?” There was irresistible command in her voice.
“I’m not some accused to warrant your compulsion to speak the truth.” Jeirran spat and scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “I’ve just heard what half the lowlanders will be hearing in their ale-houses and taverns before the summer’s out. Songs of these Elietimm, of the powers they wield, of the dangers they pose, of the might of their fighting men. How long do you suppose it will be before some greedy burgher of Wrede decides these blond men from across the ocean are no different from those blond men over the mountains? They’ll seize on any excuse to steal more land, more wealth, to drive us back farther and farther from what was once ours. Maybe that’s what befell the Teyvasoke. You must have heard about that from your new kindred.” Jeirran laughed mirthlessly. “If they drive us back far enough, we’ll all become Men of the Ice, won’t we?”
Aritane’s face was cold, eyes like the shadows in the cracks of a glacier. “You have no idea what you are talking about. The Alyatimm sought to use the powers of Sheltya to dominate and rule without mercy or consent.”
“I know that these Elietimm, whoever they may be, use their powers to defend themselves. I know that they do not see true magic as something to be hidden and secret but a weapon to save their lands and their people from plunder and rape. I’ll wager every coin of my patrimony that their wise are not taken away from land and family, lest they are ever tempted to use what they learn for their soke’s advantage.” Jeirran got to his feet and walked slowly around the roof, looking down into the compound and over the wall to the grasslands of the valley beyond. “Wouldn’t you rather have had the chance to use your learning to benefit your blood, to take up your inheritance and make it prosper, rather than see our home left empty to shelter passing travelers now that those who claim it cannot even be bothered to dwell here half a season in the year?”
Aritane’s face was bloodless and pale as the flagstones beneath her feet. “Why do you do this, Jeirran? Why stir up the long-dead embers of old wrath and bitter sorrow? Raise a fire like that and it will burn your hands. What’s done is done and there is no way to change it.”
“But what if there were?” Jeirran said softly, crossing over to her and taking her hands between his. “You cannot tell me you are happy with your lot, Ari! If you were, you would hardly have come to meet me here. I saw you at Solstice, in the Parthfess, having to dance attendance on that stupid old man. Everyone else may have thought his ramblings were the mystical wisdom of Sheltya but you knew full well it was just senile nonsense. I could see it in your eyes. They promised you power and knowledge in return for losing your home and family. What have they given you? The role of nursemaid to some incontinent old fool who still gets more respect than you when he’s drooling gruel down the front of his night-shirt! How is it right that the powers of true magic are kept from desperate people by the fears and cowardice of the Elders?”
“By rights, I should denounce you myself,” Aritane spat at him, “or very least wipe this conversation from your memory, together with all this festering hate and whatever half-truths you think you’ve garnered from lowland gossip!”
“Do so,” shrugged Jeirran. “No matter, it won’t change anything. Inside half a season, someone like me, someone selling his ingots or another trapper trading with the lowlands, he’ll bring back these songs and tales. Yevrein will be wondering why these people, who must surely share our blood, why are they so feared by the lowlanders? Why are these Elietimm using all means at their disposal to protect homes and families, while we are robbed and assaulted at every season’s turn? Peider and his friends will start wondering too, start asking questions of Sheltya, demanding answers too. Whoever among you decides to find those answers—well, that’ll be the one who finally takes the whip out of the hands of the old and fearful, won’t it? To govern how the true magic is used, to see that wisdom tempers raw power that the so-called wise are too fearful to use?”