To Storm Heaven - Esther Friesner [44]
“You know that you do not mean such ill wishes, child,” she crooned. “And I think that Shomia knows better than to speak so rudely to you when all you did was ask a question.” She looked meaningfully at Shomia, who colored deeply and stared at her hands.
“The only foolish question is the one that is asked to shame another,” the old man decreed. He turned to Riker and said, “Honored visitor, why don’t you give the boy his answer?” Me? A hard knot clenched in Riker’s belly. I don’t know the answer. I don’t know how their stories go. I don’t— Then he felt the tension leave him as realization dawned. But it k the same question children have asked forever: Why does an all-powerful force for good allow evil to exist?
He looked kindly at the sniffling child in Lelys’s lap and said, “The Lady knows that sometimes bad things must happen along with good ones so that the Balances may stand even.” He looked up at the old man and added, “I’m afraid I haven’t explained it very well, but that’s the way I was taught it.” “And well taught.” The storyteller seemed satisfied.
“When the children of the stars stepped out onto the good land,” he went on, “they discovered that Yaro had been busy here as well. Though the land was rich and the harvests plentiful, Yaro set his blade deep in the rocks and made them shake and crack. Fire and smoke streamed from the earth, fields became valleys, valleys swallowed mountains, and everywhere the people were afraid. Many of them came to Rika’an and begged him to take them away in the silver ship, but he refused. ‘This is the land where the Lady’s hand has placed us,’ he told them. ‘We must stay here, so that if she seeks us, she will know where to find US.’” “Urn—” The little boy named Herri stirred in Lelys’s lap. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but just then Shomia broke into a loud fit of coughing. Herri gave a start. “I wasn’t going to say anything, Shomia, honest!” he cried.
Shomia paid no attention to him. Instead, she clambered to her feet, still coughing, and ran out of the courtyard.
“I thought she was going to tell me to shut up again,” Herri said in a small voice.
“But she did not, see? Now go on, child,” Lelys urged him. “You are free to speak.” “Well,” he nibbled his lip, “I think Rika’an was wrong. The Lady knows everything, so why wouldn’t she know where to find us even if we went all the way across the sky?” “You’re right, Herd,” the old man said. “And Rika’an was right too, but for a different reason. This is the land where the Lady placed us, she who is mother to the Six Mothers and whose blessed Balances hold us all. She brought us here for a reason, though it is a reason we can never hope to know without being raised to the realm of the gods themselves. We must accept her wisdom even if we cannot understand it.” A warm, dry breeze stirred the vine leaves over the old man’s head, bringing with it the last trace of the smoke from the vanished incense cups. He coughed as if a wisp of it had tickled his throat, then spoke on.
“Even though Rika’an spoke well, the people were still afraid and still they begged him to take them away in the silver ship. At last he lost patience with them and said, ‘Go, then! Take the silver ship and be gone!’ And so they did go, more than half the people who first came to Iskir. They stepped into the silver ship and sailed away across the seas of night and were never seen again.
“When the true people who were faithful to the Lady’s judgments came to ask Rika’an what had become of the silver ship, he told them, ‘Wait until nightfall and I will show you.’ And when the darkness came and the moons rose bright, he pointed to a new light in the sky, a blazing disc the color of hearthfire, and said, ‘Yaro’s fire has consumed the silver ship and all who sailed in her. See there where it burns eternally! That is their punishment for having denied the