LITMIR.BIZ

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Torchay pushed away and strode into the temple.

      Kallista scrambled to catch up, rushing down the long corridor after him. “Dammit, Torchay, you’re bleeding again.”

      “Let it.” He rounded on her again, just outside the entrance to the sanctuary, bending down until his nose almost brushed hers. “At least I have sense enough to be going to get it mended, unlike some too-stubborn-for-her-own-damn-good naitan I know.” He whirled and stalked across the worship hall.

      “Torchay—” Kallista called after him, but he only gave one of his disgusted growls. Better to let him go. Maybe he’d be in a better temper later.

      She wandered toward the center of the worship hall, her hand drifting to the ring in her pocket, the one she could not possibly possess. The ring given to her in a dream. She had yet to put it on a finger, but neither had she been able to leave it behind, lying on the chest in her room. She’d carried it in a pocket the last three days.

      Kallista drew the ring from her pocket. The rose on its crest was identical to the one inlaid in the center of the temple floor, the faint reddish hue derived from the wax left behind when it had been used as a seal. What did it mean? How had she come to possess it? She had far too many questions and far too few answers.

      Perhaps she should consult Mother Edyne. But what could an East magic prelate of a provincial temple know about mysteries such as these? Kallista started to put the ring back in her pocket and almost dropped it.

      She caught it again, gripped it tight in her hand, heart pounding. She couldn’t lose the ring, no matter how little she wanted it. Somehow, she was certain that it was a key to many of the answers she wanted. She didn’t understand how an inanimate object could answer questions, but the certainty would not leave her. Perhaps she was meant to look the ring up in some archive or other. However the answers were to be had, she could not lose the thing. And the safest place for it…

      Kallista sighed, resigned to the inevitable. She removed her right glove and slid the ring onto her forefinger where the dream Belandra had worn it. But it would not fit over her knuckle. Her hands were apparently bigger than the dream woman’s. The ring went on the third finger of her right hand. It looked good there.

      “It’s about time.” The woman’s voice behind her brought Kallista spinning around so fast, she lost her balance. It could not be.

      But it was. Belandra lounged carelessly against the wall not far from the western corridor. She looked younger than she had in Kallista’s dream, her hair a brighter red, her body more slender, but still a decade older than Kallista.

      “Who are you?” Kallista wavered between backing away in horror and drawing near with curiosity. “How did you come to this place?”

      “I told you. I am Belandra of Arikon. As for how I came here—you brought me.” She gave a mocking smile as she waved her hands in a flourish. “You have questions? I have the answers. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to give you all of them.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because some things you must learn for yourself.”

      Kallista shook her head, trying to clear it. That wasn’t what she wanted to know. She tried to sort the questions crowding her mind, to find those most urgently needing answers. “How did I get this? What is it?”

      “A ring.” Belandra rolled her eyes, seeming to mock Kallista for asking something with such an obvious answer. “And I gave it to you back before I died.”

      “A thousand years ago.” Kallista let her doubt show.

      “Give or take a few dozen, about that.”

      “That’s not possible.”

      “For the One, all things are possible. Obviously it did happen, because I am here talking to you. You had to have something of mine in your possession before I could come to you. And here I am, at your service.” Belandra pushed herself off the wall and bowed, as much a mockery as most things she’d done.

      “You’re a ghost.” Kallista didn’t believe in ghosts. Or thousand-year-old dream rings. But the one on her finger had come from somewhere.

      “Something like that, but not exactly.” Belandra shrugged. “Oresta who came before me explained it, but I never quite understood. Does it really matter? I’m here now. And I probably ought to tell you before you use them all up that you’re only allowed six questions each time I am allowed to come to you.”

      “Allo—” Kallista cut herself off, trying to count up how many questions she’d already asked. She couldn’t remember. “Who allows it? When will you come back? What questions may you answer? What are the rules? Are you truly dead?”

      Belandra waggled an admonishing finger. “That’s five. You only had two left. Which means I can answer the first two, but the others will have to wait until next time, provided you still want to ask them again. Though I already answered the fifth, if you will consider. Unless you believe I could still live after a thousand years.”

      “I’m not sure I believe you ever lived at all.”

      “Believe what you like. Your belief doesn’t alter the truth. Do you want me to answer your questions?”

      “Please.” Kallista gestured for her to continue.

      “It is, of course, the One who allows me to appear here before you, and at least one Hopeday must past before you next summon me.”

      “I didn’t summon you this time.”

      “Did you not? You put on the ring. You desired answers. I am here.” She gave Kallista a sardonic grin. “My first year, I summoned Oresta every chance I got.”

      “Your first year of what?” Kallista demanded. Belandra’s answers only created more questions.

      “Apologies, my lady Kallista.” The grin on the woman’s face didn’t look very apologetic. “But you are out of questions.”

      “Who are you talking to?” Torchay’s voice brought Kallista’s head around to see him walking across the worship hall as if he thought his steps might fracture the tiles beneath his feet. His expression held barely disguised fear. Behind him came Mother Edyne, whose expression was more guarded.

      “To her. Belandra.” Kallista waved a hand in the other woman’s direction.

      “Naitan,” he said, voice as careful as she had ever heard it. “There is no one there.”

      Kallista turned, looked, and Torchay was right. “She must have gone.”

      Torchay reached her, moved between her and the place where Belandra had been. “I have been here listening and watching for some time. Since you asked whether—she?…were dead. You spoke. You listened. You spoke again. And I saw no one. Who was it?”

      She let out a long breath, looking past Torchay’s worried face to Mother Edyne’s curious one. “The woman who gave me this.” She held up her ungloved right hand, showing the ring. Mother Edyne, to her credit, did not flinch at the sight of the naked hand. “Belandra of Arikon.”

      CHAPTER SIX

      Safely behind the closed doors of Mother Edyne’s chamber, Kallista told her the rest of the story while the prelate tended Torchay’s cuts with her healing East magic. She sat with head bowed while Mother Edyne examined the mark Kallista had never herself seen. Finally, the older woman let the hair fall and sank into her chair with a sigh.

      “Well?” Kallista hoped Mother Edyne had more answers than Belandra had proved willing to share. Provided Belandra had been anything more than a flicker from a fevered mind.

      Edyne shook her head, hand over her mouth. After another moment, she removed it. “I fear that I have neither the knowledge nor the wisdom to deal with such mysteries.”

      Kallista hid her instinctive wince at the word. Mystery was of the West.

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