The Compass Rose. Gail Dayton

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      “What’s wrong?” Torchay looked outward, hunting the threat.

      She couldn’t answer. This was her dream. She had dreamed it four nights in a row, always the same. Now, the man in the white tunic would call his daughter down from the pile of rock. He did. Her eyes snapped to the southern edge of the broken wall. The thin trickle of sand poured from the mortared interior.

      “Get back!” she shouted, throwing herself forward. “Get away from the wall! It’s going to fall!”

      Unlike her dream, heads turned. People heard her. They started to move, slowly at first, uncertainly. But when the trickle of sand became a stream of gravel, they ran.

      “Hurry!” Kallista snatched up the disobedient girl and thrust her into her father’s hands. “Run! That way!”

      Torchay grabbed Kallista and shoved her into the shelter of a deep doorway just as the first of the dressed stone fell from the top of the mortared wall to shatter on the street’s cobbles. He held her there, shielding her with his body until the thunder of falling rock ended and he allowed her to push him away.

      Fine dust clouded the air. Kallista coughed as she peered into the collapse, trying to see broken limbs, crushed bodies.

      “This was your dream.” Torchay’s voice held no doubt.

      “Yes.” There should be casualties. A child’s body there, beneath that largest stone—but no, Kallista had given that child to her father. And the woman who should be moaning, trapped over there with her face bloodied—Kallista had seen her run into an alley two houses over.

      As the air cleared, people began to emerge from the cover they had taken, staring about them from frightened eyes in dust-whitened faces.

      “Who’s hurt?” Kallista shouted. “Is anyone missing?”

      “My sedil, Vann,” a man called.

      “No,” another answered. “I’m here. Not hurt.”

      The workers milled about, shouting an occasional name, but in the end, all were accounted for. The cuts on Torchay’s legs and back where the shattered rock had struck him were the worst injuries. He and Kallista had been closest to the collapse.

      “But how did you know?” the mason in charge of repairs asked. “How did you know it would fall? Even I had no warning.”

      Anxious to get Torchay to the temple for healing, Kallista did not want to take time to answer. Torchay hung back. “Do you not see the blue of her tunic? She is a North naitan. She can read the earth and the things carved from it. Not often. But sometimes. When there is danger.”

      “Ah.” The mason nodded in understanding as Kallista urged Torchay on.

      “Your back is still bleeding badly,” she scolded. “We do not have time for these delays.”

      “Better to give them an explanation they can swallow than leave them to wonder and invent something even more outlandish than the truth.”

      “Fine, fine. It’s done.” Kallista lifted her hand from the deepest cut to find it still bleeding. She put it back, but it wasn’t easy to maintain sufficient pressure as they walked. “Just don’t bleed to death before we reach the temple.”

      Torchay chuckled. “Such tender concern for your underling.”

      She pressed harder, knowing it hurt him, but wanting the bleeding to stop. “Hush.”

      For a while he did, but she knew it was too good to last. “While they’re tending my back,” he said, “I want you to talk to Mother Edyne. Tell her about the dreams. Tell her everything.”

      Kallista scowled. She didn’t want to. If anyone else knew, it would somehow become more real. “I’ll consider it.”

      “Tell her, Kallista. You must. It’s no’ normal, what’s happenin’ to you. What if you stop breathin’ again and I can’t bring you back? I didn’t last time.”

      “Yes, you did.” They hadn’t talked about what happened, though they’d slept back-to-back every night since then. She didn’t want to talk about it now, but it appeared Torchay was of a different mind. “You called me back.”

      “Back from where?” He stopped at the temple door and gripped her arms, the light, clear blue of his eyes blazing almost white as he glared at her. “Where were you? It wasn’t a dream, was it? You don’t know what’s happening to you. I certainly don’t. You need to find someone who does.”

      “You think that’s Mother Edyne?”

      “I don’t know. Neither will you until you tell her.” His hands tightened, digging in till it almost hurt. “Promise me you’ll do it.”

      She dragged her gaze away, stubbornly silent. She couldn’t make that promise. She just couldn’t.

      “Pah!” Torchay pushed away and strode into the temple.

      Kallista scrambled to catch up, rushing down the long corridor after him. “Dammit, Torchay, you’re bleeding again.”

      “Let it.” He rounded on her again, just outside the entrance to the sanctuary, bending down until his nose almost brushed hers. “At least I have sense enough to be going to get it mended, unlike some too-stubborn-for-her-own-damn-good naitan I know.” He whirled and stalked across the worship hall.

      “Torchay—” Kallista called after him, but he only gave one of his disgusted growls. Better to let him go. Maybe he’d be in a better temper later.

      She wandered toward the center of the worship hall, her hand drifting to the ring in her pocket, the one she could not possibly possess. The ring given to her in a dream. She had yet to put it on a finger, but neither had she been able to leave it behind, lying on the chest in her room. She’d carried it in a pocket the last three days.

      Kallista drew the ring from her pocket. The rose on its crest was identical to the one inlaid in the center of the temple floor, the faint reddish hue derived from the wax left behind when it had been used as a seal. What did it mean? How had she come to possess it? She had far too many questions and far too few answers.

      Perhaps she should consult Mother Edyne. But what could an East magic prelate of a provincial temple know about mysteries such as these? Kallista started to put the ring back in her pocket and almost dropped it.

      She caught it again, gripped it tight in her hand, heart pounding. She couldn’t lose the ring, no matter how little she wanted it. Somehow, she was certain that it was a key to many of the answers she wanted. She didn’t understand how an inanimate object could answer questions, but the certainty would not leave her. Perhaps she was meant to look the ring up in some archive or other. However the answers were to be had, she could not lose the thing. And the safest place for it…

      Kallista sighed, resigned to the inevitable. She removed her right glove and slid the ring onto her forefinger where the dream Belandra had worn it. But it would not fit over her knuckle. Her hands were apparently bigger than the dream woman’s. The ring went on the third finger of her right hand. It looked good there.

      “It’s about time.” The woman’s voice behind СКАЧАТЬ