This was the oracle she sought. This was the place she could commune with the dead. The dark pool.
Maia sighed and then stepped back from the stone. She knelt in the sand and pulled the pack off her shoulders. For a moment, she listened to the roar of the waves and then quickly went to work. From the pack, she withdrew a small bundle wrapped in cloth and secured with a leather thong. Inside were twelve flat stones, each one chipped and marked with the proper runes she had learned from the tome of the Dochte Mandar. She knew the order readily, having memorized it. But the difficult part lay ahead. Would she be able to communicate with the spirit? Maia was good with languages. She had studied them all her life. First as a princess, knowing that she would marry a foreign prince and be expected to know his tongue. But after her father had disinherited her, she had continued with her studies as a way of escaping the pain of his betrayal. The irony of it still sent pangs through her. Her father had exiled the Dochte Mandar during his attempt to disannul his marriage. Now he needed their language to save his kingdom. And only his firstborn, his daughter, was skilled enough in languages to attempt the effort. Bitterness welled inside her. She thrust it down.
Setting the stones in the proper order around her, she looked at the circle they formed. They would protect her from the dead. With one hand, she pulled the cowl from her head. Water dripped from the tip of her nose. Fear seeped into her bones. She tried to speak, but could not.
She tried again.
“Och monde elles brir. Och cor shan arbir. Och aether undes pune. Dekem millia orior sidune.”
A prickle went down her spine. Closing her eyes, she summoned the kystrel’s magic and felt the glow of the small stones on her face. She repeated the dirge of the Dochte Mandar again.
“Och monde elles brir. Och cor shan arbir. Och aether undes pune. Dekem millia orior sidune.”
Something moved in the waters.
Maia felt a tug of terror in her bones, the desire to flee back to the doors. She wanted to open her eyes, but she knew that would destroy her. It would lead straight to madness. Whispers swirled around her. Snuffling sounds. The thunder of the waterfalls grew louder, overcoming the lapping sound of the waves against the sand. Maia felt coldness wrap around her, a coldness that went deeper than bones. The kystrel burned against her chest, protecting her, keeping her warm.
Something brushed against her hair. A finger? A breeze?
The whispers stopped.
Instead, images began to coalesce in her thoughts.
—A world of noise . . . the woods sharing a single heart . . . the anvil of heaven below . . . a million stars yet to be born—
It was the dirge spoken in images, each one wrapping around the last like a cocoon.
Welcome, Daughter. What do you seek? What do you desire? What is your Gift?
Astonishment rippled through Maia. The voice in her mind, the images she saw, were silvered by the presence of a woman. She felt something brush against her cheek. A caress?
“Do you know . . . my tongue?” Maia asked.
It is your thoughts that speak loudest to us. What do you seek? What do you desire? What is your Gift?
Maia thought back to the tome. Three questions she was allowed to ask. To expect more than this from the dead was perilous.
“What is the plague that afflicts my father’s kingdom? The tomes of the Dochte Mandar, they hint at it. They seem to know of a way to tame it. But what is it?”
Maia’s mind filled with images. The troubles had begun years ago and slowly increased. Husbands abandoning their farms to cross the sea. Mothers drowning their babes in buckets or troughs. Children stoning children. It happened among the wealthy and the base, in winter and summer. And it was getting worse. Each year was getting gravely worse.
You are plagued by the Myriad Ones, the Unborn. They infest the wild things first. They encroach upon the living as spiders and rodents until they learn your secret fears. They come as wolves and bats until those fears are at their deepest. Then they come as man. What do you desire?
The images made Maia shiver with cold and loathing. She understood more now. The spiders and ticks and serpents that had plagued the land below the Spike. The beast from the woods. The cursed lands teemed with them—the Myriad Ones. The Unborn.
Maia tried to speak, but her jaw chattered so much she could hardly get the words out. “How does one . . . how can we fight them? Do the Dochte Mandar truly keep them at bay?”
Daughter, they cannot be destroyed. They can only be subdued. We lost our fight against them, Daughter. They prevailed against us.
“But surely there must be . . .”
She felt the anger in the images—anger caused by her interruption. Maia quieted, struggling with the thoughts that spun through her mind.