The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Isn’t God consumed, then?”

“No. God has no material substance, not like we do.”

“I admit I am puzzled. Who is this enemy?”

“Darkness and corruption.”

“But darkness and corruption are everywhere. They are part of Earth. How can any place exist that does not contain all that is? Does this ‘enemy’ cause humankind to do evil things?”

“No, not at all. We live our lives according to free will. Darkness came into the world, but it is up to us to choose that which is good, or that which is evil. If God had made it otherwise, that we could not choose evil, then we would be slaves, ‘an instrument in the hand of Them who set us in motion,’ to quote the blessed Daisan.”

“Then who is responsible for evil?”

“Darkness rose from the depths and corrupted the four pure elements.”

“Surely this is impossible. The world has always existed as it was created in the days long ago by the Great God. Darkness was part of creation, not the foundation of evil.”

“Then who do you think is responsible for evil?”

“There are many spirits abroad in the world above and the world below, and some of them are mischievous or even malign. They plague us with sickness and bad luck, so we must protect ourselves against them.”

“What of the evil that people do to each other?”

“Are there not answers enough for this? Greed, lust, anger, envy, fear. Do these not turn to evil when they fester in the hearts of humankind?”

Liath laughed. “I cannot argue otherwise. This drink has made my tongue loose and a little clumsy. I have not eaten for many days.”

“No guest of our tribe goes hungry!”

Sorgatani clapped her hands. The younger servant brought a wooden tray and set it down in front of Liath. Three enamel bowls contained yogurt, dumplings stewed in fat, and a hot barley porridge. The two servants moved away, bells settling and stilling as they sat beside the threshold with heads bowed. Sorgatani averted her gaze while Liath ate, forcing herself not to gulp down the meal. When she had finished, the servant removed the tray.

“I ask your pardon if my questions have caused offense,” said Sorgatani. “You are my guest. We do not know each other.”

“Nay, do not apologize. As the blessed Daisan wrote, it is an excellent thing that a person knows how to formulate questions.”

The older servant refilled Liath’s cup, and she drank, savoring the aftertaste flavored like milk of almonds. The fermented drink flooded her limbs with warmth and made the heavens, glimpsed through the smoke hole, spin slowly, as a sphere rotates around its axis. She and Sorgatani were the axis, surely, and the whole world was spinning around them, or they were spinning; it was hard to tell.

“How is it that you speak Wendish so well?”

Sorgatani downed a second cup as well. “Humans are born with luck that leads them either into ill fortune or good fortune throughout their life. We who are shamans among my people have so much power within us that we have no room for luck to be born into our body, so our luck is born into the body of another. My luck was born in the body of a woman of the Wendish tribe. Because I see her in my dreams, I understand and speak her language.”

“This is a thing I have never heard of before. Is it common for the luck of a Kerayit shaman to be born into a foreigner?”

“Our luck is born where fate decrees, and where our path lies. It is my fate that my path lies west, intertwined with that of your people. I think you know her, because she speaks of you in her dreams. She is called Hanna—”

“Hanna!” Liath had not seen Hanna since Werlida, when she had fled Henry’s wrath with Sanglant. “Do you know where she is? Better yet, I’ll search. Is there a fire I can look into?”

Sorgatani lifted a hand, and the older servant brought the silver cup over on the tray, now cleared of bowls. She set it down before Liath and retreated.

Liath passed a hand over the shimmering surface of flame, as smooth as water licked by ripples of fire. With ease, she drove a path through the flame and sought Hanna.

Only the coruscating blue-white flicker of the burning stone met her seeking gaze, as if Hanna were caught within the gateway, wandering the ancients paths woven between the stone crowns.

“How can this be?” she whispered.

Shadows danced, and faded, making her dizzy, and she found herself back in Sorgatani’s tent. The oil in the cup had all burned up to reveal, in the bottom, an astonishing wheel of horses’ heads, spinning like a pinwheel, one galloping after the next, until she realized that she was staring at a pattern beaten into the silver. She took her hands off the cup. The jangling of tiny bells announced the arrival of the older servant, and the cup was removed.

“She does not walk on Earth,” said Liath, surprised to find she could still speak. The effort had tired her, and the question of Hanna’s fate weighed on her, an impossibly heavy burden. Hanna was her northern star, the one sure stable point in a tumultuous world. “I pray she is not dead.”