Mystic Warrior (38 page)

She completely trusted the man Murdoch had become. She opened the peculiar channel between their minds so he could feel her faith, and some of the tension left his posture.

“I want what is best for Lis,” he acknowledged. “If the gods have chosen us as amacaras, then I must trust in their decision. If I am to accept that I am their chosen Oracle, then my place is on Aelynn. The Council can choose to banish me, but in the absence of your mother, I doubt there is anyone here, other than you, capable of physically forcing me to leave.”

Both Trystan and Kiernan stiffened, their hands falling to the hilts of their swords. Any battle between Ian and Murdoch would be bloody. Lissandra didn't want to know which side their friends would fall on. She waited for her brother to accept what was so obvious to her.

Ian gestured for his friends to relax. “The Council has good reason to fear you, LeDroit. Of all of us, only you have the power to destroy this island with a careless rage. Even the fact that you were the only one of us capable of wrestling the chalice home will cause trepidation. They will not accept Lissandra's word that you have changed.”

Murdoch nodded curtly in acceptance of that argument. “Normally, I would take that as a challenge to battle. I can prove that I am mightier than any man on Aelynn, and I believe I can do it without bringing down lightning.”

Ian waited.

Murdoch glanced at Lissandra. “I can see that the volcano darkens our skies. You've said it rumbles, that the weather has become erratic, the crops are failing, and even Waylan the Weathermaker has been unable to bring a balanced amount of sun and rain. And these problems are the basis of grave discontent.”

Lissandra's heart beat faster, and nodding, she regarded him with wonder.

At her approval, he turned his attention back to Ian. “I have seen for myself what happens when one class of people holds all the wealth and power to the detriment of others. It is happening here, the same as in France. My mother scraped by as a hearth witch when I was a child. Even though I bought her a plot of land before I was banished, the Council will not acknowledge her voice. Nor does it acknowledge the voices of all the other landless people who clean your houses and till your fields. The weather is not the only basis for discontent.”

“One of the many reasons I have the Council scouring our laws for outdated ones,” Ian agreed without resentment. “It's best to start small and open the floor for discussion. Your mother is doing as well as can be expected, from all reports. She won't speak to me.”

Murdoch snorted. “She probably won't speak to me either. I came by my temper honestly. What
will
meet her approval is not me proving my ability to beat you to a pulp, but me proving my ability to be productive.”

Even Lissandra fell silent at that declaration. He was completely, totally correct. A mighty battle of weapons would only raise alarm and uncertainty. Returning health to the land or stability to the weather would sufficiently relieve the Council's apprehension.

“You have a suggestion?” Ian asked warily.

The wicked tilt of Murdoch's lips warned of the direction of his thoughts, and Lissandra pressed a hand to her belly in a protective gesture. “Planting your potent seed off the island, without the temple, does not count,” she warned before he could say it aloud.

“I am mightily proud of my accomplishment, just the same,” he replied with a grin, to the music of their audience's gasps.

Satisfied with the lovely blush on his intended's cheeks, Murdoch returned his attention to the only man with the power to destroy him. For Lis's sake, he could never harm Ian. Besides, he respected the man and considered him a friend. He wanted Ian's approval. He had known he could not walk into Lis's arms unchallenged. He could only pray the gods stayed with him through the ordeal ahead.

Ian turned to his sister with concern engraved upon his brow. “You carry a gifted child not of Aelynn?”

“The spirits of our forefathers are spread wide and far,” she acknowledged. “You chose to live near them when you chose your Other World home.”

Ian and Chantal exchanged glances. Chantal had been barren in her marriage before she'd wedded Ian and had borne only a son conceived at the temple since then.

Murdoch smirked in understanding. “It is almost time for you to consider conceiving another. Wouldn't you like to be able to return home and hope to achieve what we have done?”

“We are all testing the limits of our powers,” Ian replied. “Tell us how you will prove your productivity—aside from the ability to produce Aelynn children without Aelynn.”

Murdoch quit smirking and his look encompassed the men he'd once called friends, as well as the people he would call family, should he be so blessed. “I need to test the volcano.”

“That way lies madness,” Trystan said bluntly into the stunned silence. “Even if the gods do not kill you for your temerity, the volcano's sides are frail and given to collapsing.”

Murdoch waited. If he had learned nothing else from Lis's company, it was to listen to others with patience, even though he knew he was right. He kept his smile to himself, but Lis's frown in his direction said she'd felt it.

“How will you test a volcano?” Kiernan asked.

As always, the vision he'd Seen was murky, but he knew he needed to gather strength from as many sources as were available. His experience in the tor had finally taught him humility—he knew he needed help, and he couldn't always count on divine intervention. “I cannot say until I get there,” he replied. “But for whatever reason, the volcano is broken.”

He heard the women gasp, but he kept his gaze intent on Ian.

“You have Seen this?” Ian asked. At Murdoch's nod, he turned to Lissandra with concern. “He walks into hell. What will happen to you and the child if he does not come back?”

Murdoch tucked his hands under his armpits and forced himself not to explode with the need to justify his actions. He wanted Lis to believe in him. He wanted her to stand beside him, even if she thought him crazed.

“I don't think any of you understands what Murdoch can do,” she said quietly. “He has already channeled the power of the chalice and saved my life and that of our child. He has healed a madman—talk to the Minutor who returned with us if you do not believe me. Murdoch has worked miracles that we have never dreamed of because he's willing to fight for what he wants and has the imagination to See the whole of what he does.” She sent him a look of love and laughter. “His downfall is that he lacks the humility to see the necessity in communicating what he knows.”

As much as he longed to kiss her, Murdoch clenched his fingers into fists, hiding the tension they revealed beneath his arms while he waited as the others laughed at Lis's final remark. They still looked at him warily, unwilling to take the word of his mate—even when his mate was Lissandra, the Queen of Sensible.

“If he saved your life, it is no doubt because he endangered it in the first place,” Kiernan objected.

Murdoch refused to defend himself. They had to accept him as he was—a man without words who could prove himself only through action. He'd spilled his guts for Lis and the gods. He had no desire to repeat the performance for disbelievers.

“You look through eyes clouded by affection. You do not see my sister as she really is,” Ian admonished Kiernan. “Consider that Lissandra has done what the rest of us could not—returned with both Murdoch and the chalice. That he managed to deliver her safely despite her willfulness speaks well of his ability to deal with her as no other can. My concern lies in the chance of losing the one man who's capable of controlling her.”

Murdoch allowed himself a laugh at Ian's perspective. It felt good to have at least one man who understood him—and Lis. “To risk Lissandra is to risk my soul,” he admitted. “But as she has made clear, she is my equal and my match. You must give her the same freedom to do as she wishes as I have.”

Lissy tugged one of his fists free from where he'd hidden it, and wrapped her slender palm around his fingers. He watched proudly as she glared at the room bursting at the seams with muscled men. “I have no idea what Murdoch intends,” she said, “but I have seen what he is capable of, and I will do whatever he asks if it means restoring Aelynn to normal. The gods are truly with him.”

He lifted his eyebrow and looked down at her. “And if I tell you that you must stay here, where it is safe?”

“I will follow anyway,” she said sweetly.

That succeeded in raising an uproar of discussion that carried well into the evening hours.

Letting his spirit roam, Murdoch studied the stunted growth of what should have been his mother's lush field of wheat. He'd sought her out as soon as he was able, but she wasn't home. And apparently she refused to return home until he left. Which he wouldn't do until he'd earned the right to the Oracle's residence. He came by his stubbornness fairly.

His brash statement to Ian about the broken volcano had been based on his visions, but he needed to plant his feet in the soil and feel Aelynn in his veins before he could even grasp the scope of the problem here.

The volcano hadn't quaked since their arrival two days ago, but he didn't remember the smoke being as thick and constant in his youth as it was now. The ashes raining down on the land reminded him of the poor Breton village after he'd nearly destroyed it with the unintended fire.

So far, his mother's people and the landless rebels who defied the Council had left him alone out here. They were waiting and watching to see what he would do. Word had spread quickly of his claim to the title of Oracle. As ever, he was caught between the worlds of his amacara's powerful family and the voiceless one of his parents. He didn't know how to bridge the gap between the two classes any more than he knew how to heal the dying land.

From his spirit's lofty perch on a celestial plane, he studied the distant elevation. Until these last few years, the volcano had been quiet. It had not unleashed its fiery power since the times of the Ancient Ones. The blackened lava had eroded in the winds and rain of the centuries, revealing the skeleton of earth and stone beneath the molten ash. Jungles grew up the mountainside now. Coffee and cinnamon trees flourished on the lower foothills, but higher up, the soil was too thin for farming, and fiery fissures had opened
.

With his feet rooted firmly on the earth and his spirit free to roam, Murdoch's conviction grew that the gods had merely tested his obedience with the tor. Now they would test his strength and wisdom—and his confidence in himself. He was inexorably drawn to explore Aelynn's uppermost reaches.

Not only his fate but the fate of Aelynn rested on his shoulders. Until now, he'd thought an Oracle simply another pampered leader who told people what to do. He hadn't realized that in actuality, an Oracle stood between life and death—just as a warrior must do.

Persuaded that he'd learned all he could and that only one solution was possible, Murdoch emerged from his trance, uprooted his feet from the wheat field, and replaced his hoe in the shed where he'd found it.

He returned to the Oracle's cave, which Ian had politely left for his use. The Council was having tantrums over Murdoch's access to the sacred residence, but even they had to agree that since he'd returned the chalice to the island, he wasn't likely to sell it to the highest bidder, so the island's treasures were presumably safe with him.

They might think differently if they could see him now.

After wrapping the sacred object in old velvet, he tucked it into a canvas satchel. He prayed that he understood its purpose.

He added foodstuffs from the larder to the satchel, along with herbs and unguents. Dylys had taught him well, and he knew her cabinet inside and out. She hadn't taught him all that Ian and Lissandra—as potential Oracles—had needed to know, but he'd listened and learned just the same. He prayed fervently that he understood the gods' intent, and that he could carry out his task without mishap.

With care, he wrapped his swords in cloth and canvas that would shield them from tarnish and deposited them in the hidden chamber behind the cave's inner room. He verified that the Sword of Justice, the island's other treasure, was still safe in its hiding place, then laid his weapons alongside it. If he understood the gods, he would no longer have need of such blades.

He was at peace with the idea. A warrior had to be strong, and he'd proved the strength of his sword arm. By using physical prowess to accomplish what he believed, he had almost sold his soul. Now he had to prove the strength of his convictions by other means.

Night had fallen by the time his preparations were complete. His step was light and quick as he took the path through the temple grove and up the mountainside, the same path he'd traversed as a child, when the island was his entire world.

If he was wrong, this might be his last exploration.

 

Lissandra bent over the young Diviner and her newborn daughter and tucked them in while the proud papa looked on. “She is so beautiful. You are very fortunate.”

The mother beamed despite her exhaustion. “She is fortunate that Aelynn sent you home in time to assist in my labor.”

“I should never have waited to take my wife into town. I knew the nearest Healer was too old to climb these hills. It's all my fault,” the father said gruffly.

Lissandra smiled and touched his burly arm. “You tended your crops as you must if you wish to feed your family. There is no shame in that. Perhaps Aelynn saw that I was home and sent the child early so your wife might be up and well in time for the harvest.”