Chapter 21

Lenda came hurrying into the room, the one that had belonged to Melanine, the old FirstMother, but was now Nalene’s. Melanine had not been seen since the day she abdicated her title. She’d left the Haven and never returned.

Nalene was still getting dressed and she looked up and scowled at Lenda. “Have you forgotten how to knock?” she asked acidly.

Lenda wilted. “I’m sorry, FirstMother. I was in a hurry and I forgot.”

“Yes, just as you forgot the stew you were cooking yesterday and burned it so badly no one had any dinner. Just as you forgot the candle burning in your room and nearly lit your bed on fire. Is there anything you cannot forget?” Nalene had not slept well and besides that she was irritable because there had been no further contact with Lowellin for days. It was as if he had completely forgotten the Tenders and forgotten her. After the intense surge of optimism and hope she’d felt the day they all swore to follow him, it was a bitter letdown. Making it worse was the odd visit from Quyloc, saying he couldn’t find Lowellin either.

After waiting and praying her whole life for something to finally happen, Nalene didn’t think she could bear the thought that Lowellin might have gotten her hopes up, only to crush them.

“I don’t know, FirstMother,” Lenda said, hanging her head.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Why did you barge into my room?” Nalene just managed to avoid shouting at the woman.  She knew if she did that, Lenda would simply dissolve into tears and fall apart. It could take hours to find out what she came in for.

Lenda blinked, thinking.

Nalene crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “I’m waiting.”

Lenda’s eyes grew very wide, but still she did not speak.

“You are beginning to anger me.”

“FirstMother!” she cried. “I forgot!”

“You what?”

“I forgot why I came in here. You scared me and now I can’t remember.”

“That’s it, Lenda! Get out of here before I lose my temper!”

Lenda squeaked and bolted out the door. Just beyond the threshold though, she stopped dead. “FirstMother!” she exclaimed, turning around, her face lighting up. “I remember!”

“Praise the Mother,” Nalene said sarcastically. “What is it? A lizard you found dead under the table? A bee that got in your hair when you were at the market?” Lenda had a tendency to get oddly excited over the strangest things.

“No, that’s not it at all. It’s about the Protector.”

Nalene suddenly went very still, though her heart sped up. She took hold of Lenda’s wrist and pulled her back into the room, none too gently. “What is it, girl? What about the Protector?”

“He was in the common room earlier, sitting at the table.”

“This morning?”

Lenda nodded. “He was so still and quiet I didn’t see him and when he spoke I screamed.” She lowered her eyes. “Just a little.”

“Forget that,” Nalene fairly snarled. “What did he say? Is he still here?”

“No, he left.” Lenda wrung her hands, unsure if she was going to be yelled at about this.

Nalene took her by the shoulders and fought the urge to shake just the tiniest bit of sense into her. “Tell me what he said.”

“He said…he said for you to meet him tonight, inside the ruined temple.”

“In old Qarath?”

“I guess. I don’t know any other ruined temples.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No. That was all.”

Nalene let her go and Lenda scurried away. She realized she was shaking and she went to her bed and sat down. This was it. It was finally happening. This was the day the Tenders would begin their climb back into the light. This was the day they would begin to prove to Xochitl that they were once again worthy of Her.

Nothing, nothing, could be allowed to go wrong.

          

By the end of the day, Nalene was a nervous wreck. She’d been on edge the entire day, jumping at sudden noises, barking at the other Tenders’ smallest mistakes. Twice during the day she’d reduced Lenda to tears.

The sun was close to setting when she sat down at the dining table with the rest of the Tenders and picked up her spoon. All of them avoided looking at her. No one spoke. Nalene ate a spoonful of soup and quickly spat it back out.

“It’s cold!”

All of the women stared hard at their bowls and tried to look as small as possible. Nalene glared at the lot of them.

“It’s bad enough that I have to eat slop that’s barely fit for an animal. Is it too much to ask that it at least be warm?”

Dead silence. No one moved. Then Velma said timidly, “We’re out of coal for the cookfire. There wasn’t enough to heat the soup.”

“Out of coal? I told you two days ago to buy more!”

“There’s no coin. The last few coppers went to buy cloth for—”

“I don’t care!” Nalene yelled, standing up and throwing her bowl against the wall, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. “I can’t stand it anymore! I won’t live like this, huddling in this hovel like beggars. We are the chosen of the Mother and it is time the world remembers it.” Breathing hard, she leaned over the table, pointing at them. “I promise you this. Things will change around here. Do you hear me?”

The women stared at her in alarm, none of them daring to respond. Lenda had turned white and was shaking.

“I want you all to understand something,” she continued. “I will do anything, anything, to restore this order. I will not let anything stand in my way. If any of you doubt this, if you are not completely and absolutely dedicated to this task, then you need to get out of this building now!” She punctuated each word with angry stabs of her index finger.

The other Tenders sat there paralyzed. Then Lenda started nodding furiously. “I’ll do it, FirstMother!” she babbled. “I’ll do it. Just tell me what to do.” Tears streaked her face.

Nalene’s expression softened somewhat. “Good. That’s one. What about the rest of you?”

Heads bobbed all around the table.

Nalene stared at them for a minute longer, gauging their commitment. She still thought them too soft, too weak, but she felt marginally better. Maybe they weren’t hopeless after all. Maybe she could forge them into something.

“Get my robe. I’m going to meet the Protector.”

The Tenders all surged to their feet.

“Just one of you. Velma, you go. And get the Reminder as well.”

Velma’s eyes grew very large. “FirstMother, are you going to wear the Reminder in public? Is that…is that…?”

“The time for timid half-measures is past. The Mother has no use for those followers who are afraid to take risks in the war that is coming.”

Velma hurried out of the room. “Sit down,” Nalene told the rest irritably. They sat.

When Velma returned with the robe, Nalene let her help her on with it. Then she lowered her head to let Velma set the Reminder around her neck. She faced all the women proudly, her head held high.

“Let history remember this moment, when the Tenders first climbed out of the muck and moved back into their rightful place.

She left the room without another word.

          

But when she stepped outside, with sunlight still in the sky and watching eyes seemingly everywhere, she suddenly felt very exposed. Wearing the Reminder in public could get her dragged down the street and beaten. After making sure the door to the Haven was closed and no Tenders were watching, she tucked the Reminder inside her robe.

Then she set off down the street. She walked quickly and avoided eye contact with people. The old white robe she wore didn’t really stand out all that much and wouldn’t necessarily mark her as a Tender, but today she didn’t want to take the risk. If something happened and she wasn’t able to make her meeting with Lowellin, he might conclude the Tenders were not capable of handling their role in the coming war. And they might not get another chance.

Of course, she could have chosen not to wear the white robe at all, but she didn’t want Lowellin to think she was frightened. He had chosen her because she was strong and she was determined to prove to him that she was.

She left the city through the smaller north gate and started up the rutted, abandoned road to old Qarath, which sat higher up on the foothills of the Eagle Mountains.

Old Qarath had been a mighty city during the days of the Kaetrian Empire, nearly as large and as wealthy as the capital city itself. The Tender temple there was even larger than the central temple in the capital city, which was fitting since Qarath was the ancestral home of the Tenders, being the city where Xochitl lived back when she still walked amongst her children.

After the fall of the Empire—triggered by the events at Wreckers Gate and the loss of the capital city to the sands of the Gur al Krin—the temple in old Qarath stood for some time against the chaos and anarchy that swept the land.

But the Tenders holed up in the temple were few in number and as their powers continued to erode it became clear they could not hold out much longer. The mobs outside the temple walls grew larger and angrier with each passing day, the citizens of the city convinced that it was the treachery of the Tenders that had led to the fall of the Empire.

What happened next was mostly lost in the dust bin of history, but the Tenders inside the temple made one last, desperate attempt to survive. The story that Nalene had always heard was that the Tenders joined their dwindling powers together and sought to tap directly into the River, the Source of all LifeSong.

But the power they unleashed was too much for them to control. Raw, uncontrolled Song exploded outwards, killing the remaining Tenders instantly and causing an earthquake that cracked the great temple in half.

But that was not the only damage caused. Something the Tenders did tainted the raw Song and as it burst outward across the city every living thing it touched was affected. Some things merely fell ill or were rendered unconscious. But others were fundamentally changed. People and animals were mutated, driven insane.

The survivors fled the city and began a new city, further down the foothills of the Eagle Mountains.

It had been nearly a thousand years since that day and there were people who made a living scavenging in old Qarath, finding bits and pieces to sell, but most still avoided the place. There were always stories floating around about ghosts and other dark things that supposedly waited within the abandoned city.

One thing everyone agreed on: it was lunacy to go into old Qarath at night.

Which helped to explain why Nalene set out for the city while it was still light. She wanted to be inside the old temple before it got dark. She didn’t really believe that old Qarath was haunted, but she also knew it was one thing to discard superstitions in the light of day, and quite another thing to do so in the darkness.

Nalene made it to the shattered gates and entered the city just as the sun was setting. Centuries of neglect had greatly diminished the once-proud city, but had not defeated it entirely. Most of the stone buildings still stood, though the colors were gone and facades had crumbled away. There was an elegance of craftsmanship still visible in the buildings and in fallen statues and weathered sculptures that was not present in modern Qarath.

The cracked dome of the temple was visible at the city’s highest point, turning orange in the sunset. The main boulevard leading up to it was littered with broken stone and Nalene had to pick her way carefully. The shadows grew longer.

She heard footsteps behind her and she stopped and looked back the way she had come. The street was deserted. Telling herself it must have been her imagination, she continued on.

But before long she heard the footsteps again. This time they sounded closer. She spun, her heart speeding up. There was nothing but growing shadows.

She began to move faster. She glimpsed something between two buildings and thought she saw the flash of a face. She gave up all pretense and started running. Her footsteps echoed hollowly off the ruined buildings.

She was gasping and sweating by the time she finally reached the temple. The twin spires that had once graced the grand entrance had collapsed and lay broken in thousands of pieces and she had to climb over some of them, scraping her knee, in order to gain entrance to the vast courtyard that lay before the mighty dome itself.

Once inside the courtyard she stopped and looked back into the street. The sun had completely set and she could not see far or clearly, but she thought she saw a figure in the distance, standing in a doorway, staring at her.

She turned back around and hurried toward the cracked dome, hoping that she would be able to take shelter there.

Inside the dome she stopped again. There was no movement in the courtyard. Had whoever—or whatever—been following her given up? Or were they even now creeping closer?

Stop being ridiculous, she told herself. Even if someone was following her, it was surely nothing more than a filthy scavenger. She was the FirstMother, she was in the ancient seat of Tender power, she was about to meet the Protector, and she would run no more.

She turned her back on the outside, pulled the Reminder from under her robe, and went deeper into the temple.

She’d been here once before, during her Songquest, the ritual all Tenders went through at the end of their initiation. The purpose of the quest was for young Tenders to have the vision that would guide them through their lives, the vision that would map out their future. They endured three days of fasting and praying, then set out to wander until their vision came to them.

It was hard for Nalene to imagine how idealistic and hopeful she had been back in those days. Unlike many Tenders, who saw the quest as a waste of time, she’d undergone hers eagerly. She’d been excited to see what the Mother had in store for her and she believed that—unlike most of the other Tenders, who got nothing but sore feet—the Mother would grant her a vision.

For the first few days nothing happened, and her hope began to dim, but things changed when her steps led her up the slopes to old Qarath and the ruined temple.

She’d reached this very spot and, too weak to walk anymore, fallen to her knees and prayed as she never prayed before. Finally, she fell asleep, and that was when she had her vision. It came to her in a dream.

In her dream she found a small, hidden door in the temple that opened onto a long, steep stairway leading down. A shimmering, humanlike figure was waiting for her on the stairs. For what seemed like hours she followed it down into the darkness.

At last the shimmering figure stopped, and turned to her with glowing eyes. They were in a small cavern with a high ceiling. In the center of the cavern was a huge tree, made completely of crystal. It was beautiful. She stared at it, entranced, and understood that it was the tree of Tender history. Each branch was a piece of the Tenders’ past, and on the leaves were written the names of famous Tenders.

Then the shimmering figure pointed and she saw a new branch at the bottom, just sprouting from the trunk. At the end of the branch was a single, crystal leaf and on that leaf was written her name.

When she reached for it, a great wind began to howl through the cavern. The limbs of the crystal tree thrashed wildly, limbs cracking away, leaves falling off.

It took all she had, but she fought her way through the storm and wrapped her arms around the trunk of the tree. The storm tried to tear her free, but she refused to let go. Finally, the storm subsided. That was when she woke up.

She walked back to the Tender home that morning a changed woman, scarcely aware of the poverty and ignominy the sisterhood lived in, filled with what she had experienced. She interpreted the dream to mean that the Tenders were going to face a terrible crisis, but that she would be the one to lead them through it if only she was strong enough. The vision was what drove her life from then on.

But the years passed and nothing happened. Her vision grew tattered, ever harder to take hold of. Reality proved too much for faint promises. And the reality was that the Tenders were a shattered remnant. Their power from the days of old was gone and there was no way they were ever going to reclaim it. She would die a nobody among nobodies. That was the reality she had to live with, had to harden herself to. The Mother had deceived her. It was all a lie.

Until Lowellin arrived. When he named himself and spoke of his mission everything changed, as suddenly as a lightning bolt from the sky. All at once her vision burst forth once again, as bright and fresh as the day she’d received it.

Nalene walked down the long entrance hall. Massive columns lined the hall, the arches between them leading to other rooms and areas of the temple. Something scurried up a column to her right, dislodging bits of rock as it went. Much of the hall’s ceiling had collapsed in the earthquake and there were jagged chunks of stone that she had to pick her way around, but at length she made it into the great dome itself.

A massive crack bisected the dome, the last of the daylight coming in through the crack enough that she could still see fairly well. The inside of the dome was a huge amphitheater, big enough to hold thousands of people. Set high up on the inside of the dome were the symbols of all the Arcs of the Circle of Life: Human, Animal, Bird, Plant, Reptile and Insect. The last two had always seemed odd to her. There were no Tenders of those Arcs now. Many didn’t believe they’d ever existed at all, especially the Insect. Why would a Tender devote her life to bugs? There was only one oblique reference to the Reptile Arc in the Tender history books, and the Book of Xochitl made no mention of either of them.

Though it was too dark to see them now, she remembered that between the symbols, in alcoves angled to look down on the gathered worshippers, were statues of the greatest Tenders: Fea, who tamed the savage tribes of Caldea and brought them to the faith; Termina, who wrote most of the Book of Xochitl shortly after the Mother left; Veriana, who turned back the godless hordes of Sertith when they threatened the entire Empire; Hame Terinoth, who stood with the Eight at the creation of Melekath’s prison. There were others, too badly broken to be recognized.

Covering the inside of the dome itself was a great mosaic. The colors had faded and much of the work had fallen out in great chunks, but the picture was still visible. It showed Xochitl, standing with a great host at her back. She was pointing at a beast-like figure, who cowered and slunk away toward a gaping hole in the earth. Crawling and groveling beside the beast-like figure were numerous warped and misshapen parodies of humans, following their master down into the hole. It was the Banishment, when Xochitl defeated Melekath and his spawn and imprisoned them.

There was no altar in the great worship hall, only a raised, circular dais in the center of the room. It was there that the FirstMother stood in the days of glory, presiding over a room filled with kneeling thousands. Throughout the city were numerous circular plazas. During worship everyone who wasn’t too old or too sick to move knelt in those plazas—it was a crime to avoid worshipping the Mother—all facing towards the Temple.

Legend had it that it was there on the dais where the last FirstMother, Shireen, conducted the ritual that led to the destruction of the temple.

It certainly looked like it. A huge crack split the white stone in half. The crack zigzagged across the floor of the worship hall, up the walls and across the ceiling. The stone along the edges of the crack was blackened and melted as if in a great fire.

In her imagination, Nalene could picture what might have happened, the Tenders linked in a joining circle, using their combined power to summon the River. Then the power getting away from them, the sudden explosion and great gouts of white-hot fire. Did they realize during that last, fateful moment their mistake? Or did it happen too quickly?

Nalene climbed up onto the dais and walked over close enough to the crack so that she could look down into it. It might have reached to the center of the earth. Cold, dank air wafted up out of it. She shivered and started to back away—

All at once the edge gave way and she plunged into the crack, clawing at empty air.

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