The Three Sisters - Rebecca Locksley

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stared at Yani. What a ridiculous remark! Civilisation and human progress required settlement. His sense of survival warned him not to voice these remarks. He could be in danger here.

      Fortunately Duprey changed the subject. 'Will you fight for your sister at St Stefan's, then?'

      'Can I?' Yani asked, surprised.

      'The winner of St Stefan's tournament may ask for one war captive to be released. Usually it is a Mirayan who wins, but if a native fighter makes a good showing, High Chief Scarvan is generous and allows him to ask for one too. After all, we have so many of our people in captivity.'

      'What a strange custom,' Yani said. 'I had thought to simply ask for a ransom.'

      Duprey shook his head. 'The Mirayans don't ransom except between themselves. Sometimes you can buy people back, but it depends on the owner. They are valuable, our women, with their spinning and weaving skills. Scarvan and his merchant friends have got very rich exporting woollen cloth to Miraya in the last few years.'

      A slander on our good prince - to imply that a nobleman would dirty his hands with trade, thought Ezratah.

      'I thought the Tari no longer left Ermora,' Duprey continued. 'But now here you are and you tell me your sister was married to Eldene Mori. Was it an alliance?'

      'The Tari have little interest in the outside world. But I enjoy travelling and fighting, and my sister loved Eldene Mori. That is all.'

      Duprey looked as if he would have liked to ask more but did not, so Ezratah did. 'Is Ermora your land? I've never heard of it. Where is it? And why do the Tari never leave it?'

      'Ermora is the holy source of the Tari,' Yani said. 'It is a land where harmony dwells and the life spirit wells to the surface of the world. Magic is in the very air. Why would the Tari ever wish to leave such a place?'

      'You are too generous, Lord Yani,' Duprey said. He turned to Ezratah. 'Once the Tari used to roam among us. They are mighty healers and mages and wherever they went, they sought to bring harmony and peace. That was a Golden Age. Then a Seagani king - Southern Seagani, not one of we Horse Seagani - trapped three of them and gave them to a death mage to feed to his demons. After that the Tari turned their backs on us and never again came among us. There is great regret among the people for that especially… ' He shot a quick, careful look at Ezratah. He obviously meant a slur against Mirayans and he dared not go on. Instead he turned to Yani and said, 'It was twenty-four years ago and those responsible for the wrong are all dead now.'

      'It is not my decision to make,' Yani said uncomfortably.

      'What exactly happened?' Ezratah asked.

      'Twenty-four years ago, when the Mirayan death mage, Asgor, was laying waste to the Seagani lands around Olbia, my people sent three mages to combat him,' Yani said.

      'Three!' Ezratah cried incredulously. What a ridiculously small number!

      'Yes, they wanted to be sure he was defeated,' Yani said, clearly misunderstanding his exclamation. 'It has always been our duty to the Circle of Life to fight such death magic. But the ruler of that region, Gorice - '

      'May his name be cursed for all eternity,' Duprey said.

      '- was secretly in collusion with the death mage. He took the three captive and turned them over to Asgor, who fed them to his demons. This gave him great power. There is no worse fate for the Tari than to become demon fodder. They are truly destroyed for their essence cannot return to the great Circle of Life to become part of the world again. One of the mages was my father, Garroway.'

      'So it was your grandmother, Mathinna, who defeated Asgor!' Duprey cried.

      'You know your history.'

      'How could a single woman defeat a death mage?' Ezratah cried in astonishment. How could these men even act like they believed such outrageous nonsense?

      'What?' Yani cried.

      'Highness, we are talking of Tari mages,' Duprey explained. 'And they are a people of such mighty magic that they can defeat death mages and even demons in a single combat. As one who was there said,

      As Olbia exhausted lay

       beneath the horror of that act

       The world cracked open

       And a Tari queen came walking

       tall and calm,

       To wrench the world back into joint

       with a single flicker of her eye.'

      'Fine words,' Yani said admiringly.

      'I wish I had been there to see your grandmother come down that hill,' Duprey said.

      'The words you speak are admiring, yet surely there must be some ill feeling over what happened next.'

      'What did happen next?' Ezratah asked.

      'A Tari, but not Yani's grandmother, made the Tower of Olbia fall into the sea,' Duprey said. 'There is little ill feeling about that: Gorice was giving over his own people to fuel Asgor's spells and they were glad to see him dead. The real disaster happened after that.'

      'Hold your tongue you cheeky fellow!' Ezratah snapped. 'The countryside was in chaos when Prince Alexus Scarvan arrived. There were blood beasts and other death servants roaming the land, and no organisation to speak of. That is why they offered him the crown. We Mirayans brought peace and the Seagani should be damned grateful.'

      A flash of anger appeared in Duprey's eyes.

      'I meant only to refer to the disappearance of the Tari,' he said coolly. 'You speak as one who has a guilty heart.'

      The two men glared at each other.

      'Good men, let us not have hard words,' Yani said quickly. 'These matters are long past now.'

      It was on the tip of Ezratah's tongue to tell the fellow to shut up and moreover to dispute this ridiculous story about Yani's grandmother killing a death mage single-handedly. But he was outnumbered here and far from help. He had been a fool to ever come.

      'Will you tell me more about this tournament of St Stefan?' Yani asked peaceably.

      'I think I will sleep now,' Ezratah said shortly. He was too annoyed to pander to this arrogant fellow any longer. He retired to a corner of the hayloft, which he warded very thoroughly against enemies before he went to sleep. He lay awake for a time listening to Yani and Duprey talking, but they were not saying anything nasty about Mirayans. The Seagani had travelled much on the peninsula - for nefarious purposes no doubt - and had many sprightly tales to tell, some of them as improbable as the tale of a single female mage overcoming a demonmaster.

      Chapter 5

      The following morning Yani arose at first light and went outside to say the Morning Chant. She knelt facing Ermora, as she had every morning and evening of her life. It always struck her as ironic to face it when she could remember nothing of her life there. She had been but a babe in arms when her grandmother had taken them away. Yet all her life she had felt a part of the Circle of Life and honouring it seemed unquestionably right.

      The Morning Chant was a prayer to the life spirit and a promise to respect its balance in the day to come. As she prayed to each element, she drew the five circles representing the five elements on the ground: fire, water, earth, air and, encircling the other four, the separate but uniting element of life. Then she drew crossed lines through them to symbolise their connection. As she prayed she opened herself to the elements and felt them flowing through her - a great interconnected skein of being, warm and peaceful like liquid sunlight and at the same time strong, surging and urgent like the flow of a river or the roar of flame.

      She wondered how long she would be able to maintain the useful illusion that she was a proper Tari, not the grandchild of an outcast. She hoped that they would find Elena safe and well and rescue her. These thoughts she bound up in her prayers so that her wishes might be given shape by the elements of the Circle and be made into destiny.

      Prayers finished,

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