Taliesin finished admiring the moon and stepped back.
Zuleman stooped over the telescope and looked for another wonder to show me. He said, “Have a look at these stars, Avala. Stars are suns, most of them many times brighter than our sun, but they look small because they are so incredibly far away. Our sun is a star, our day-star, and it lights our whole sky only because we are so close to it. What you see now are suns, untold millions of miles away.”
The telescope was pointed to what I thought was a fairly bare patch of sky, but when I looked I saw stars beyond number, some very large and bright, some tiny, some gathered so close together that they looked like glittering mist. The more I looked the more I saw, stars that went on and on forever into the dark.
“Where’s the end of it?” I asked, lost in awe. “Where do the stars end?”
“They never end,” the Master said. “That’s the glory of them. And the mystery.”
He moved the telescope again and peered through it. While he searched the stars he said, “I knew your grandfather, Avala. Gabriel’s father. I gave him copies of my star charts, which he used for navigation. He was a sailor, a famous merchant, and went on long voyages to seek out fine silks, artworks, and riches from the far reaches of our Empire, which he brought back to Navora. Some of the greatest foreign treasures in our city came from his ships. Ah—there it is! The four moons showing tonight, lined up nicely across. Take a look. This is not a star, but a planet. Another world, round like ours, though unlike ours in other ways.”
I looked and cried out in astonishment. I saw a gray ball with four smaller balls—the moons—in a straight line across it. I could see the land, strangely marked in wide lines, and the shadows of the moons as they passed across.
“That planet is many times larger than our earth,” explained Zuleman. “It has those four moons, and many others besides that we cannot see. The bands you see are clouds, and the swirling reddish patch is a huge storm that rages everlastingly. We call that world Erdelan.”
“Erdelan,” I repeated. “A beautiful name for a beautiful world.”
Then I asked to see the moon again, and looked at it for a long time, not noticing that my hands were shaking with the cold, and my feet felt like ice. I was wishing, with all of my being, that Ishtok were here to see this. How he, too, would love it!
While I looked and marveled, Zuleman told me wonders about our galaxy, of how the planets and their moons and our Earth all swing about the sun in a huge cosmic dance, perfect and elaborate and everlasting. Beliefs I had held since childhood, about a flat Earth and the moon sailing like a ship in river winds in the sky, were blown away, leaving me breathless, awed, and with a blazing desire to know more.
At last Taliesin said, covering a yawn, “Enough for one night, Avala! The stars and Erdelan will be there for the rest of your life. We can come again.”
I turned to Zuleman and took his hands. “I’ve seen the most wondrous things this night,” I said. “I feel a high lot honored. I wish all my people could see what I have seen. Thank you. Thank you, with sharleema.”
“It was my great pleasure,” he replied. “When we are free, back in the Citadel, this telescope will be for all who wish to use it. You can line up your whole tribe outside my door, and they can see this. I will be happy to teach them all I know. And I hope they will tell me what their priests and astronomers know, and the Shinali names for the stars. We have much to share.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And thank you for telling me about my Navoran grandfather. It’s good for my heart, to find out about my Navoran family. Did you know my grandmother, too?”
“Only a little. Her name is Lena. We’ll talk another time, Avala. Our friend Taliesin is almost asleep on his feet. And you have work with Salverion in the morning. Though poking about in pots of herbs and pickled livers can’t be anywhere near as marvelous as gazing at the stars.”
I thought about that for a moment or two. Then I said, “Heart’s truth, your other worlds are wonderful, Master, but not as wonderful as the healing of Delano.”
He looked taken aback for a moment, then he smiled, and his eyes shimmered a little in the starlight. “Maybe you’re right, Avala,” he said. “My other worlds are beautiful, but they are only gas and dust, ice and fire. Nothing, compared with the miracle of human life.” He embraced me and kissed the top of my head, as Salverion often did, and Taliesin and I left.
My heart sang as we went down the long stairs toward our rooms. “Your Empire is so wonderful, Taliesin!” I said. “It has discovered so many amazing things. The things I am learning here, the things I’m seeing . . . It’s as if I’ve lived in a tiny tent all my life, and someone has suddenly blown the tent away, and I find myself in another world altogether. Many other worlds.”
“You’re seeing the best the Empire has to offer,” he said. “Until now you’ve seen only the worst. Now you see that there is much that is good, much worth saving. Besides, it’s not my Empire, but yours as well. It’s not another world you’re discovering, Avala; it’s your own.”
“So it is,” I said, stopping on a stair, astonished at the thought. “It’s half my own life I’m discovering, half my heritage. Half my own self.”
He shivered and said, “Please don’t stand philosophizing for too long. I’m frozen.”
“Let’s go to the kitchen for a hot drink,” I said, suddenly realizing how cold I was, too, after the hours by the open window. “I’m too excited to go back to sleep.”
Taliesin groaned and muttered something about being too old for midnight feasts, but he came with me to the kitchen. As we sat in the warmth by the massive ovens and sipped our drinks, he asked, “How is your work going with Salverion? All winter you’ve been working with him. You must know how to numb a bit of pain by now.”
“I’m learning slowly,” I said.
“Very well. I’ll test you.” He put down his drink and stood with his back to me and his head bent. “Numb my right foot,” he said. “Imagine I’ve got gangrene from the cold, after staring at the stars all night, and you have to amputate. I want it properly numb, and only from the ankle down. I don’t want to be totally comatosed.”
He grinned and held aside his dark hair, so I could touch his neck.
“It might be a good idea to comatose you,” I said, “since then you wouldn’t be able to complain.”
His grin widened, then he straightened his back, and I moved my fingers down his vertebrae.
“I didn’t think you knew the meaning of the word comatose,” he said. “I’d better be careful what I say from now on. I suspect you understand everything.”
“More than you think,” I said, removing my hand from his neck, and picking up my drink again.
“What—done already?” he said. “I don’t think it worked. I didn’t feel a thing.” He tried to walk to his chair and almost fell over. I watched him hop to his seat, and tried not to laugh.
“I’m impressed,” Taliesin said. “It is indeed only my foot. Salverion must be pleased with you. He’ll be sending you up to Sheel Chandra soon.”
“After the next full moon,” I said. “I’ll have the summer learning from Sheel Chandra, and in the autumn I’ll go back to the Igaal. Salverion said you’d go with me, as far as their camp.”
“I’ll enjoy the journey. Much as I love Ravinath, a trek to the Igaal territories sounds like a pleasant change.”
I asked, “Where did you live before you came to Ravinath? Before you went to the Citadel? Are you from Navora?”
“Yes, I’m Navoran,” he said. The laughter faded from his face, and he sighed deeply and looked down at the cup in his hands. “I have a wife in Navora, and two twin daughters. The children were eight months old when I was chosen to go to the Citadel. Then my training was to last seven years. After that, I was to be free to go and continue healing wherever I wished, living again with my wife and children. But the Lord Jaganath changed all plans. And, when the changes came, I could not give up the work I b
elieved I had been born for. So I came here to Ravinath, though I knew that we might be here for many years.”
“Do you ever hear from them? Your wife and children?”
He shook his head, and I asked, “Did Sheel Chandra not take you to them, in your mind? As he took me to my mother?”
He shot me a surprised look. “Did he, now? You were exceedingly well blessed, Avala. No, he did not use his powers to help any of us in that way. We knew, when we came to Ravinath, that we would be cut off from the world and all who loved us. We also knew it could be for a very long time. But we could not risk contacting anyone, for Jaganath has spies everywhere, and ways of forcing people to give up what is in their minds. Not one soul outside Ravinath knows the place exists—except you. You must never speak a word of it. Not to anyone, ever.”
“Not even to Ramakoda, or Ishtok?” I asked.
“No, you must not tell even them,” he replied. “If one of them was ever taken in slavery, he could possibly end up in service to Jaganath. And Jaganath could walk in his memories, and discover there your story of us. It would undo much of our work in shielding your people—could undo everything, and have everyone here killed.”
“I wish Sheel Chandra could shield everyone, and not just my people,” I said.
“He often says that himself,” said Taliesin, getting up. He forgot his foot was numb and almost fell over again. I put our cups away and offered to help him to his rooms.
“Just give the feeling back,” he said.
“I don’t know how to do that.”
He sighed again and tried to look annoyed, though he grinned. “Just drop me in the dining hall,” he said. “It’s almost morning. By the time I limp all the way down the stairs to my quarters, it’ll be time to come back for breakfast. Next time I invite you to practice your powers on me, remind me to ask you first if you can reverse them.”
I did learn to reverse the effects of blocking nerves, and many other things besides. The deeper healings I learned from Salverion were similar to the ones I had learned from my mother—the sending of light through pathways in the body, to heal and ease and restore—but with Salverion I learned to make the healing deeper and more extensive. Because I knew much more about anatomy, I knew where to send the healing light, and precisely what to do with it. It was as if, before, I had been working blindly; now I worked with sharpened vision, and could send the light to exact places, along exact nerves and blood vessels. Also, he told me much about surgery, though I could not put it all into practice. I did do some dissecting, however; Taliesin and some of the other disciples often went hunting for deer or rabbits or wild goats in the mountains around Ravinath, and when they brought back the carcasses for the cooks, Salverion and I were allowed to have the organs. The cooks got used to me practicing with my scalpel on the contents of their casseroles.
There was one sad interruption to my learning; at the beginning of summer one of the old Masters, a musician, had a heart attack and died, and the whole of Ravinath mourned for him. So for the first time I saw a Navoran funeral and joined in the prayers and listened to the wonderful words they said about him who had died. He was buried in a long silver casket in the Garden in the Gap, under the apple trees in the orchard. In the dappled sunlight there in the garden the musicians played some of the music he had composed, and it was so soaring and sublime that I wept at the beauty of it. That music seemed to reveal the spirit of the great Empire my father had loved, before it was spoiled by the shadow of evil.
The death affected Sheel Chandra deeply, for he loved music, and the old musician had been his great friend. So it was decided that I would not begin my training with Sheel Chandra until summer’s middle; and, as I had learned all that Salverion wanted to teach me, in the meantime I was permitted to do whatever I wished to fill my days. I worked in the garden, helped Amael with his herbs, and went hunting in the mountains with Taliesin. I spent many nightly hours with Zuleman, looking at the planets and the stars, and learning, and wishing again and again that Ishtok were here with me.
I also spent many hours with the scientists of Ravinath, asking questions. My curiosity became a joke with them, and when they saw me coming they threw up their hands, pretending horror, exclaiming, “Oh, no, not more questions! Can’t someone break a leg, and keep her busy with Salverion?” But their joking was always with fond good humor, and they willingly told me all I wanted to know. At last I learned about gravity, the speed of light, the size of our galaxy, and a hundred unimaginable things besides.
When my mind needed a change from stupendous revelations, I persuaded one of the musicians to teach me how to play music. He gave me an instrument he called a zither, and I spent many happy hours making sounds with it.
I also discovered more about my Navoran grandfather, Jager Eshban Vala, and was surprised to realize how famous and wealthy he had been. When he had died, Zuleman had attended the funeral. “Very grand, that funeral was,” Zuleman told me. “The Empress sent an envoy on her behalf, and he made a fine speech. Your father was there. He was only a boy at the time. He was supposed to make a speech, too, a traditional ode spoken by every Navoran first son at his father’s funeral. Gabriel refused to finish the speech, and caused quite a stir among the relatives. Got into a bit of trouble for it, as I remember.”
“Why didn’t he finish the speech?”
“I don’t know, for sure. But he was always a disappointment to his father, and they didn’t get along. Jager talked about it sometimes, with me. They had the usual family quarrels. I’m not saying Gabriel was wrong, or a bad son, but he was defiant and disobedient, according to Jager. I always thought that Gabriel was simply outspoken. I wasn’t surprised years later when I heard that he had publicly, and to his face, accused Jaganath of corruption. We all knew of Jaganath’s crimes and misdoings, but your father was the only person who ever dared speak openly of it—and he was only a youth at the time. He put the rest of us to shame, for our cowardice.”
“What did Jaganath do, when my father accused him?” I asked.
“From what I heard, Jaganath very cleverly twisted your father’s words around and accused Gabriel of treason. That means being disloyal to the Empire. The penalty for treason is death. I suppose that’s when your father took refuge with the Shinali, though even that didn’t save him from Jaganath’s wrath.”
“Will no one speak against Jaganath? Are they all so afraid of him?”
“He was always a very powerful and cruel man, Avala. We’re sheltered here in Ravinath, so I don’t know too much of Navoran politics today; but from what Sheel Chandra sees in his visions, the city’s walls have been rebuilt, and the whole place is like a fort. Not to keep enemies out, but to keep people in. Such is the fear people have of their Emperor. I doubt anyone opposes him these days, and lives.”
When I was not thinking of mighty things concerning the Navoran Empire or the world or the stars, I began to learn to read and write. Since I was a small child I had been fascinated by the elegant curves and sweeping lines in the Empress Petra’s letter treasured by my tribe, and also had loved the book my mother owned that had been my father’s, though I could read no word of it. Now I did learn to make out words and meanings from those signs on parchment, and this was a great marvel to me. To help me learn to read, Delano wrote simple poems, sometimes drawing tiny pictures to give me clues about their meaning; and in my room at night, under the lamplight, I deciphered them by myself.
Often in those reading times I looked up to see the portrait of my father, which I had on my wall, and a joy-wildness went through me, that I had found my place in his world among the people he had loved. A great peace grew in me, and there were no doubts anymore about my destiny as the Daughter of the Oneness, or as a healer. I missed my own people, but even that longing was not the desperate pain it once had been. I realized, with something akin to astonishment, that for the first time in my life I felt truly at home.
But despite my great contentment in Ravinath, there was one ache
that would not go away. Ishtok haunted my dreams and my waking hours, and on the edge of every joy, every new discovery, was the wish that he were with me to share it. And it was more than the wish to share; there was, in the innermost chamber of my heart, a hunger to see his face, to see the texture of his skin and know again the touch of him, the smell of him.
I wondered if this was love, and if it was, then perhaps there was only grief at the end of it, since he had never spoken of his feelings toward me; and despite his tenderness at times, I had always sensed that halting in him, as if with me he would go so far and no further. Perhaps he had been promised in some way to the beautiful Navamani. Or perhaps for him and me there could be no future, since I was only a slave and he was the chieftain’s son. Yet I could not wipe out the feelings in me, and so I gave them to the All-father for safekeeping in his hands, along with all the other things that were joy to me, and fear, and sadness, and hope.
18
Freedom’s truest flag flies unconfined In the human mind.
—Delano, Navoran poet
“You’ve learned a great many things since you first came to Ravinath,” said Sheel Chandra. “You’ve seen the greatest art in the world, heard the most glorious music, the finest poetry. You’ve witnessed surgery by the most excellent physician in the Empire, and he has taught you how to stop pain and to heal brokenness. You’ve seen through microscopes, marked the life within a seed; and you’ve looked through telescopes and plotted the pathways of the stars. But the greatest frontier is yet unmapped and remains almost wholly unknown: it is the power in here.” He tapped his own forehead, then leaned forward and gently tapped mine. “In here is the greatest wonder of them all.”
We were sitting in his high room where we had first met. He was in his chair and I on a stool near his knee.
“Look about you, tell me what you see,” he said.
I looked up. “I see the glass roof, and the blue sky, and white clouds,” I said. “Along the wall is the window, open. I see far mountaintops. I see stone walls, a wooden floor. And you.”