To Storm Heaven - Esther Friesner [3]
“Evramur!” the boy sang out, and from outside the old woman’s hut she heard a chorus of excited voices echoing the holy name. “Our own Ma’adrys, worthy to be taken living into the eternal garden, the shining city, the undying refuge Evramur!” “Evramur,” Se’ar repeated, unable to believe with her mind what her heart had at last accepted. From the time she’d been old enough to hear the good teachings, she’d heard the name of Evramur, haven of all blessed spirits after death. Yet sometimes a spirit appeared whose great goodness couldn’t wait for death to free it from the flesh. That spirit’s power was so intense that it cried out until the servants of holy Evramur came seeking it and took it, flesh and all, to its rightful home. Se’ar had heard of folk so blessed, but such privileged ones always seemed to live leagues away; they were the stuff of legend.
.No longer. Se’ar still saw the veil of death before her eyes, but now she knew it was not for Ma’adrys.
She gazed at the innkeeper’s thick-witted son with pity. “Kinryk,” she said softly, “carry me into the air.” Beaming with joy, he scooped up the old woman’s frail body and carried her out of the hut. Night had fallen, one moon already visible high above the horizon, the other two lagging behind. By rights all the villagers should have been in their own homes, eating their evening meal, getting ready for another day of hard life and harsh labor. Instead, the narrow, crooked path that led up to Se’ar’s hut was choked with people, all chattering and wide eyed. When they saw the old woman, they surged forward, hands outstretched.
As if my touch could make them holy because she touched me, Se’ar reflected. She tilted her head back and looked up into the night sky.
Yes, there it was, beyond the glimmering disc of the lone risen moon: the red-gold sphere that the good teachings named the Gate of Evramur. She imagined that if she stared at it long enough, hard enough, she could almost see the laughing face of her lost Ma’adrys waiting for her just beyond the threshhold.
I have bartered holy gifts for gain, Se’ar thought. I will never see you again, my dear one, for I have made my spirit unworthy of Evramur. The realization broke her heart and she began to weep.
No, Mother Se’ar. Was it an illusion or did she truly hear Ma’adrys’s voice in her ear? Recall the good teachings: It is never too late to make your spirit worthy. Not even now. One last time, use your gift as it was meant to be used.
“Yes—” The old woman’s word was lost in the clamor of the crowd closing around her. While they strove to reach her, she placed her lips close to Kinryk’s grimy ear and whispered, “Listen to me, boy. I have seen the veil of your death before my eyes.” She felt him freeze and quickly added, “Don’t fear it. It’s yours no more. For her sake I will take it from you, take it upon myself. For the sake of the one who walks the shining gardens of Evramur in flesh and spirit. For Ma’adrys—” The breath caught in her throat and was gone in a gurgle and a sigh. Se’ar was dead. Kinryk burst into sobs, crying out the news of the old woman’s final prophecy and the blessed Ma’adrys’s first miracle. At the back of the crowd, the oberyin Bilik surreptitiously wiped his cheeks and called down a curse on any villager who might dare to pillage the blessed Ma’adrys’s own miserable dwelling in search of relics.
Overhead, the red-gold Gate of Evramur looked down impassively upon the wailing villagers, as distant from their deaths as from their lives, and on the hillsides the shepherds danced and dreamed.
Chapter One
“WHAT IS THE reason for this delay?” Legate Valdor of Orakisa slapped the conference table, leaving a ghostly impression of his splayed palm on the formerly spotless surface. The cluster of multicolored crystal baubles at the base of