Time of the Eagle (15 page)

Those eyes again, piercing me, dangerous and cleaving as swords. I looked away, tracing with my fingertip the carving on the arm of the chair. My nails had dirt under them. Igaal dirt.

“Do you still believe the words of your Shinali priest?” he asked. “The prophecy that you are the Daughter of the Oneness, the cord that binds?”

I dared not look at him. “My heart, it goes between believing and not believing,” I said, studying the Igaal dirt. “When the Igaal let me heal their sick and talked with me, and their hearts were open, then I believed the prophecy. But then they made me a slave. And Mudiwar, he was so strong in his words against the prophecy, I'm thinking he will never join his people with mine. I see now that my belief in the Eagle's Time is not enough, nor the beliefs of all my people, and one old man can stop everything. So I want to go home. My work with the Igaal, the work of the Oneness, it's finished. They killed it. I will do with them no more. Now I will only be Avala, not more, not Zalidas's dream for Gabriel's daughter.”

For a very long time he was silent, leaning on the arm of his chair, watching me, his long pale fingers laid across his lips. For some reason I felt ashamed of my words, as if they had been the complaint of a resentful child.

“I am right to want to go home,” I said. “I helped them, and the Igaal gave me only hurt and hate. There is no fairness with them. It is over with them.”

Slowly, Salverion nodded. “True,” he said, “there is no fairness in any of this—not in the way your people lost their land, nor in the way the Igaal have treated you, nor in the burden that destiny has laid on you. But is it truly over with the Igaal, Avala? Is it over in your heart? Or, if you go back to your people now, will there always be unfinished work? Are you sure that Avala and Gabriel's daughter—the Daughter of the Oneness—are not one and the same?”

I bent my head low, not meeting his eyes.

After a while he said, “Sometimes there is only one way to end great wrongs, Avala. That way is through forgiveness.”

“I'm not knowing that word,” I said.

“Forgiveness means the wiping out of a wrong, as if it never was.”

“Are you saying that my people should not come back to get their lands?” I asked. “Are you saying we should just forgive the wrongs? That we should forget what is fair, what is right?”

“There is a time for justice and for putting things right. But there is also a time for forgiveness, for letting hurts go, washing the heart clean, and beginning again.”

I took a deep breath. “And it is in your thinking that I should
forgive the Igaal, go back to them, and try again?”

“What do you think, Avala?”

For a long time I pondered on his words. At last I said, “I'm thinking I could forgive. It would be hard. A high lot hard. But even if I was going to them with forgiveness, to try again to be the Daughter of the Oneness, there is still Mudiwar's hate for my people, and his last word about our prophecy.”

“Hate, even age-old and hard, can be worn down, as a little trickle of water can wear down a rock. And an old man may change his mind. Great things can be accomplished by love. And sometimes all that is required of us is that we be in the right place at the right time. Sometimes our destiny is not worked out over seasons or years, but in a single hour. But when that hour comes we must be ready for it, we must be trained and awake, sword in hand, ready to do the one thing we were born to do. If your hour is with the Igaal, it would be a great tragedy if, when that hour comes, you are home with the Shinali.”

“But my hour might be next summer, or the summer after that, or twenty summers away.”

“Yes, it might.”

“And till then I am to be a slave, alone, my happiness gone, along with my healing?”

“To be a slave, maybe,” he said. “To be alone, maybe. But whether you will be happy or not lies within your own heart. As for your healing, that can flow again. That is something I, and the other masters here, can help you with. We can teach you everything you wish to learn, everything that will help you to be happy with the Igaal, that will help you to heal them and lead
them to their own vision of the Time of the Eagle. We can teach you how to guard yourself against the forces of hate and loneliness, how to be strong within, to guard your inner peace. But only if you wish us to. And I ask you to bear in mind that even the greatest tasks, the greatest deeds, are worth nothing if they are not done with love.”

I kept silent, for an awful grief had come over me. I wanted only to return to my people, to look on my mother's face again, and see my grandmother. Was that so wrong?

Seeing my distress, Salverion said, with great gentleness, “No one will blame you if you choose to go home, Avala. I will always think of you with highest love, as I loved your father, simply because of who you are, because you are Avala. Whatever you do will not change that. And you are very young; I know this is an almost unbearable burden for you. Pledging one's service to one's country, above all else, sounds a high and noble thing; yet in reality it is hard, cold, and comfortless as steel. Believe me, dear one, I know what you suffer. Every one of us here at Ravinath knows.

“You have already done a brave thing, already given your best, and more, to the Igaal, to the prophecy. If you return to them it may be for many years. The melding together of two enemy nations is not accomplished in a single season.”

“Then what about the prophecy?” I asked, near tears. “What about the Time of the Eagle?”

“Even prophecies must rise or fall upon the free will of those chosen to fulfill them,” he said. “Nothing is written that does not depend upon the consent of human hearts, and even God himself cannot move against the freedom of our will.”

Anguished, I bent my head in my hands. I felt trapped, caught like a rabbit in a snare, and every way I turned was pain and loss.

Salverion said, “I understand your pain, Avala, your uncertainty. In that, you are so like your father. He, too, suffered self-doubt, and felt torn between two peoples, between duty to one and love for the other. I will go now, and leave you here to think, to make your choice. Take all the time you need. Do only what is in your heart; do it willingly, with your whole heart, with gladness and with love. Anything less will not be fulfillment—not of the prophecy, nor of your own joy.”

He bent and kissed my forehead, and went out.

I have told you before, Mother, that in the palace and in the dining rooms of the powerful, I hear and see many things that worry me, about our Empire and what is happening to it. The old values that Father cherished are no longer upheld, and there is a great deal of corruption and hypocrisy. I cannot help remembering my two days with the Shinali, and how much I loved the simplicity and the peace and beauty of their life. I am glad you live next to their land, and that you are open to building friendships with them, though this is against Navoran law. There is an honesty with the Shinali, a heart-openness, that I loved. Though I deeply love the Citadel and those who teach me here, and life here is separate and far above the corruption in the city, my heart is often out by the river, on the Shinali land. I feel torn inside, divided in my soul.

—Excerpt from a letter from Gabriel to his mother, kept and later gifted to Avala

T
he room I had been given was in a tower with a rounded wall and a window looking to the west. The window had folding wooden shutters and heavy red curtains to keep out the winter cold. There was a bed raised from the floor, covered with thick blankets and furs and tasseled cushions. On the floor were rugs softer and more splendid even than the Igaal carpets. There was not the brilliant source of light from high above, but there were several lamps on stands. Set into the outer wall was a hollowed place where a fire burned, and the smoke went up a narrow shaft to the outside. Beside the fire were shelves of
books, not with words, but with pictures. Perhaps to make me feel at home, someone had placed the cup Ishtok had carved on a round table in the center of the room, and by it a small bowl of dried mountain wildflowers and fragrant herbs. The walls, like all the walls in Ravinath, were stone, richly carved and painted with harmonious designs. It was a lovely room, small and homely, and I knew everything in it had been especially chosen for my pleasure. But that first night there I could not sleep, nor be at ease.

At some time in the night I opened the window shutter and curtains and, wrapped in a thick fur, stood watching the slow journey of the moon. So high was my window, so high the mountain from which Ravinath was carved, that I could see over the western Napangardi ranges to where vast plains lay smooth and blue with moonlit snow. They were the lost Shinali lands, and beyond them was the sea, though that was past my sight. Below, the ground was lost in mist, and directly in front of my window clouds slowly passed, glimmering with moonlight. In the gaps between them were the stars, winking in the bitter cold. At any other time I would have found joy and wonder in such a place, but now I felt only entrapment and fear and confusion.

I was torn, terribly torn, between my own longings and the hopes of many people. And there was another thing that made it hard for me to choose to go back to the Igaal: I realized that, for all my high dreams and my belief that I was, indeed, the Daughter of the Oneness, there was a deep resentment in me toward the Igaal, for the way they had treated me. It was like a huge rock blocking a narrow path, and I could not walk around it, or climb
over it, or pretend it was not there, no matter how hard I tried. In the end I always came back to the same hard truth: apart from a few people, I did not like the Igaal tribe and wanted to punish them for the hurts they had given me. But to punish them was also to punish my own people, and myself, for it was to refuse to play my part in the Time of the Eagle. And so, by that open window overlooking the moonlit Shinali lands, I came at last to the hard, breaking, painful place of forgiving.

But even then the final decision was not made. Although I felt freer in my heart, there was still the longing for my own people and home, and the grief that many summers might come and go before I saw them again. Restless and lonesome, craving someone to talk to, I pulled on a warm robe and my soft shoes, and went out.

The passages, though lit with oil lamps on the walls, were dim and very cold. Looking for Salverion, I went back down the stairs and passages I remembered but could not find the distinctive curtain to his door. I retraced my steps, found myself in unfamiliar passages, and discovered narrow stairs winding upward. I climbed them, thinking that at least I might arrive back at my own room. But I did not, and the stairs took me higher and higher, and the passages became narrower, and the oil lamps glimmered on ancient carvings I had not seen before. I shivered, suddenly overwhelmed by terror at being lost, closed in and imprisoned. The stone walls, the high roof lost in blackness, seemed to lean in upon me, suffocating me, crushing me. I fought for breath, wanted to call out, to scream. But then a calm came over me, and I went on, almost as if I knew where I was going, through narrower passages and up more winding and age-worn stairs.
I came at last to a door. I put my hands on it; it was warm. I pushed it open.

Warmth swept over me. Unafraid, yet with my heart hammering, I went in, closing the door behind me. The room was round and must have been the highest in Ravinath, for the domed roof was made of the clear stuff I later knew was glass, and I could see the moon and stars. In the center of the room, on a high-backed chair, sat a man well advanced in years. Very still he sat, his face upturned and luminous, his eyes closed, his beautiful long hands turned palm upward on his knees. Moonlight flooded over him. His hair was silver-white, long and waving to his shoulders, his skin darker than mine. He had no beard, but only a white mustache, soft and long. And on his face was a look of profound joy.

Soundless, I went and stood before him. For a few moments I thought he was a statue, for his face was so majestic and still; and the moonlight drained his clothes of all color, so there were only shades of moonlit blue and black. But then, very slowly, he took a deep inward breath, and his eyes opened. Such eyes! Dark they were, and deep, and wise almost beyond bearing. Under their steady gaze I felt naked, torn open to the heart, wholly known and understood. Yet it was not an unpleasant feeling, only strange, and very peaceful. Then the man smiled, and his smile was the most beautiful and loving I had ever seen.

“Don't be afraid, Avala,” he said. His voice was deep and tender, with a strange accent. “I am Sheel Chandra. Your father was the son of my heart.”

I was silent, overcome with awe. He was as I imagined the All-father to be, all-seeing and all-knowing, and yet all-loving, too.

“What is on your mind, beloved?” he asked. “Sit, and tell me.”

There was a cushion on the floor near his feet, and so I sat on it. He wore soft shoes threaded with silver or gold, which shone bright in that flooding light of the moon. “I'm thinking you have knowing of it already,” I said.

“I saw you the day you left your people, and you passed like a light out across the desert,” he said. “I covered you with protection, then left you in the shadows with the Igaal, for I could not shield two tribes. It is true, I have some knowing of what is in your mind, but I would like to hear it from your lips.”

So, in halting Navoran, I told him of myself and of the decision yet before me. Lastly, I talked of the one great dilemma that stood in the way of everything: my almost unbearable sorrow that my mother must believe me dead, and my desperate need to see her face again.

“If I could talk to her,” I said, “if I could tell her it is well with me, then I could take up any work, and do it with all my heart. But the way is there for my going to her, and I can't not go, even for the keeping of a high prophecy. I'm sorry. I am bad. And I have a cold heart for others.”

“You have just forgiven an enemy tribe for its great wrongs toward you,” he said, smiling, “and you think you have a cold heart? There is nothing wrong with your heart, dear one. It is your daughter-love that cries out now, and that, too, is good, since you wish only an easing of your mother's grief. You have great love—and that is the highest of all things. I will tell you this, Avala: your mother, too, is awake this night, and all her thought is turned on you. She is in a good place to receive a message from your mind. You are not able, yet, to reach her on your
own; but if you will sit here near me, and let me rest my hand on your head, then I will take you to her in our thoughts. Will you be afraid to do that?”

“No,” I said. Then, knowing he knew, I added, “Well, a little lot afraid. Will she be afraid?”

“She may be at first, but then she will know great joy,” he replied. “But to reach her, you must be very still, very calm, and go only where I lead. And when you see your mother, do not try to speak aloud, but only speak silently from your heart the things you most want her to hear. Keep your words few, your message simple and clear. It may be that she will not see you, but only be highly aware of your presence. She will hear your words with the ears of her heart. Do you understand all that I am saying, dear one?”

“I'm understanding it,” I said.

And so I sat near his feet, my back against his knee, and lifted my eyes to the stars. I felt his hand on my hair, and power came from him, calming me, making me so still within that every beat of my heart seemed huge and slow, and the stars above pulsed with the rhythm that was in me. Then the shining roof blew away like mist before the wind, and I was lifted high, high, and the night streamed cool about me, and the mountains spread like crumpled rocks below, and the desert stretched far beneath, and I came to the place where my people dwelled.

It is hard to talk of this vision, this journey of my soul, of the great oneness I felt with the earth and the air and the stars, for it was a sacred thing and I do not understand it, even now. But I know that out there, under those stars, I saw my mother bowed over on the ground in the lonely night, with a blanket about her,
and tears upon her cheeks, crying my name.

Then I was before her, and she lifted her head and her face changed, and a look of awe came over her. But she stayed very still, and said a prayer and waited, her eyes almost on the place where I was. From my heart I told her I was no spirit but was alive and well, and that I would go to the Igaal for a time; and there was a great peace about us, and love, and I saw her stand upright, very straight, her face alight with joy. And then I think—but I am not sure—that I made the Shinali farewell, and my hand brushed her robe; and then there was a withdrawing, a rushing of wind, a huge sense of swinging far and away and down, of passing through glass and stone, down into warmth. Then I was sitting again by Sheel Chandra, and his hand was still upon my head, and my cheek was resting on his knee. I wept quietly, from joy, and we did not speak for a long time.

The skies above grew pink, and the stars faded, and Sheel Chandra sighed heavily and said, “I must take you to your room, beloved, for Salverion has sent Taliesin with breakfast for you, and he'll be anxious because you are not there. But you'll need to help me stand, for my old heart is not so strong these days.”

So I helped him up, and he leaned on me as we left that room. He looked suddenly older and alarmingly weary.

“I'm being sorry that I made you tired,” I said.

“You can never make me tired, Avala,” he said, with a beautiful smile. “I choose to allow myself to become weary, doing the things I wish most to do. I would rather have journeyed with you this night, than have spent the hours sitting on that chair worrying about you.” He looked sidelong down on me, his great dark eyes full of humor. “Besides, it was a grand flight, wasn't it?”

“It would have made an eagle joy-wild,” I said, and we laughed as we began the long, slow climb down the many stairs.

He leaned hard on me, and I could not help thinking of Ramakoda, and the long walk with him that had begun this strange journey, this great undertaking upon which I could now, willingly and with gladness, set all my heart.

“I will be going back to the Igaal,” I said to Salverion later that morning, when I visited him in his room. “My heart, it would be glad if you would help me to heal again, and not lose that power. And I will stay with the Igaal as healer, and love them as much as I can, for as long as the All-father wants me there.”

Salverion came and put his arms about me, and kissed the top of my head. “It will be my joy to teach you,” he said. “And Sheel Chandra will teach you the great mind-powers. When you return to the Igaal, you will have the highest skills not only in healing, but also in knowing the meaning of dreams, and with the skill to see the future. And when your hour comes, you will have all you need to do what must be done.”

“I will try to be a good learner,” I said. I added, my head bent, “I will try to not fail, the way I failed Zalidas.”

“Hush—no talk of failure, here!” he said. “You did not fail, Avala. Mudiwar chose—at this time—not to play his part. That is not your fault. Please do not feel that we lay a heavy burden on you. If at any time our teachings become tiring or too hard, tell us. We'll send you out hunting with Taliesin, or gardening with Amael, our herbalist. You can even work with the cooks in the kitchens, if you wish, or you may do nothing. But I have a feeling that our teachings will not be hard for you. Taliesin told
me you saw the door in the mountain wall that leads to this place. You already have the Vision and the power to heal through our deeper ways. Besides, it is not all hard work, here, as you shall find out. We have here the best actors and artists, poets and musicians in the entire Navoran Empire.” He added, his eyes dancing as he used my own words, “I think you will find our entertainment a high lot good.”

Everything in Ravinath was a high lot good, I discovered. For the first few days I did not learn any healing skills, but Taliesin showed me about Ravinath, and I met many of the other people there. I learned that there were several masters, or teachers, and they each specialized in the wisdom they taught—some in healing, some in art, others in music, religion, astronomy, science, and literature. Some of the wisdoms I had never heard of, but Taliesin promised that in time to come I would be familiar with them all. Most of the people at Ravinath were students, called disciples. I soon discovered which wisdom each person was learning, for all the artists wore silver sashes with their crimson robes, while the musicians wore turquoise, the healers green, and so on. Taliesin called me Salverion's new disciple when he introduced me to people, and no one laughed or showed that they thought it strange. I was totally accepted, and that amazed me. But not as much as Ravinath itself amazed me.