Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [69]
Breathing hard, Elandra tried to collect her wits. Pushing her muddy hair out of her face, she closed her eyes and said a quick prayer of gratitude to the goddess mother. She still held a handful of mud. Now she allowed it to spill from her fingers.
There had to be a way to escape this terrible place. She knew of only one thing to try.
Pulling out her topaz, she cupped the golden stone in her palms and stared into its depths. She tried to put aside her fear, tried to clear her mind of everything except the face of the Magria. Closing her eyes, she reached out in the way the Penestricans had taught her.
“Magria,” she called, “I need your help. You came to me before when I was in great difficulty. Again, I call to you. Please, help me.”
No voice spoke a response to her mind.
Elandra opened her eyes and saw nothing but bleak desolation in every direction. Just as it had been before.
Her spirits sank within her.
But she refused to believe that Hecati was her only hope. There had to be some way to escape.
Wearily Elandra climbed to her feet and told herself she must try something else.
“I am here, Elandra,” a voice said to her.
It was a clear voice, a familiar one.
Startled, Elandra spun around and found a slender young woman with long, very straight golden hair standing less than five strides from her. Robed in black, her pale arms bare, her blue eyes direct and intense, she was a welcome sight indeed.
Relief flooded Elandra. She smiled and barely kept herself from hugging the Penestrican. “Deputy Anas,” she said, “how glad I am to see you!”
The Penestrican did not return her smile. “I am deputy no longer.” Lifting her left hand, she tossed a slim serpent onto the ground between them. It immediately began to slither toward Elandra’s feet. “Don’t move,” she said sharply as Elandra gasped. “There is nothing to fear if you are who you claim to be.”
Elandra immediately froze in place, but memories of other tests—some of them quite painful—made her frown. “You know who I am, Anas. Why do you test me?”
“If you are the empress, you should not be here,” Anas said in a blunt voice. “You have no means of coming to this future.”
“I was brought here.”
The snake had almost reached the frayed toe of her slipper. Elandra forgot the rest of what she’d been about to say and stood tense and wary as she watched the serpent’s tongue flicker rapidly. The snake had the wedge-shaped head of a viper; she believed that Anas could command it to strike with venom if she chose. The Magria, always more gentle than her deputy, would not have brought a poisonous snake for this test of truth. The Magria would have been more compassionate.
Elandra found it difficult to swallow. When Anas did not respond to her last statement, she glanced up and met the cold appraisal in those blue eyes.
“I was brought here,” Elandra repeated. “Against my will. I can tell you by whom and for what purpose.”
“Silence,” Anas snapped. “Do not disturb the serpent of truth.”
Before Elandra could protest, the serpent slithered away from her.
“Very well,” Anas said. “The truth has been spoken.”
A surge of heat filled Elandra’s face.
“How dare you doubt me!” she shouted furiously. “I am not to be tested like one of your novices! You do not command me, Anas!”
Anas’s blue eyes blazed back at her. “I am the Magria now,” she snapped. “Take care.”
For a fleeting second Elandra was appalled. “You are the Magria?” she said, heedless of the dismay her voice betrayed. “But she dismissed you from the succession.”
Resentment flickered in Anas’s blue eyes and was gone. “The former Magria relented,” she said.
“Oh.” Elandra frowned, trying to absorb this news. “I had not heard that her Excellency had stepped down. When did she—”
“The former Magria is dead,” Anas said, every word tight and hostile.
Genuine dismay flashed through Elandra. “Oh, I am sorry!” she said. She had liked the old woman, formidable though