Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

“A crown of stars was set on the head of the bird. The-One-Who-Sits-In-The-Eagle-Seat said, ‘Within the crown I see a mirror, and the mirror shows me the heavens and the night sky. In the mirror, I see the stars we call the Six-Women-Who-Live-Upriver, but they are burning.’ Now she was very afraid, because it seemed to her that this was not only strange and wondrous, but a particularly bad omen.

“She looked a second time into the mirror. She saw the human sorcerers standing within their stone looms and weaving a spell greater than any spell known before on Earth. Then the seers and the counting-women of my people understood the intent of the shana-ret’zeri and their human allies.

“Too late had we discovered the danger. Our enemies had already woven the net to catch us.”

Abruptly, the old sorcerer could not go on. He faded as the sun fades beneath the hills, losing all power, and his body bent over his crossed knees as though he had fainted.

“I will not speak of the suffering,” he said in a whisper that nevertheless penetrated the entire chamber, “or of the ones we lost. Only this. By means of the spell woven by the human sorcerers and their allies, our land was torn away from Earth. Here in exile we have lingered. The land dies around us as all plants die in time, when they are uprooted. We have dwindled. We would die were we to remain in this exile forever.”

He straightened up. The fire of anger flashed in his gaze again, the stubbornness of a man who has seen a sight worse than death but means to survive longer than his enemies. He looked directly at Liath. “But what is born out of Earth returns to Earth. This truth our enemies did not comprehend. They thought to rid themselves of us forever, but they only exiled us for a time.”

“How can that be?” demanded Liath. “If they flung you and your homeland away from Earth, then surely it must be your own sorcerers who are bringing your land back to Earth.”

“Give me your belt.”

She undid her leather belt and walked forward with her tunic lapping her calves. The council members had fallen into a profound silence, whether out of respect for Eldest Uncle and his memories, or out of sorrow for what had been lost, she could not know.

He took the belt and held it by the buckle so that the other end dangled loose toward the floor. Grasping the other end, he brought it up to touch the buckle.

“Here is a circle.” He placed a finger on the buckle. “If I were to walk on the surface of this belt, where would I end up?” He let her draw her finger from the buckle around the outside flat of the belt, until she returned to where she had started.

“So,” he agreed, because she was nodding, “think of the buckle of this belt as Earth. When the human sorcerers wove their spell, they meant to throw my people and the land in which we dwelt off of Earth, to a different place, so—” He moved her finger from the buckle to the underside of the buckle. “Now the one is separate from the other. Even if I walk on this side of the belt, I will not come back to Earth. Do so.” She ran her finger along the inside flat of the belt and, truly, although she remained close to the other side of the belt, although she passed underneath the buckle that represented Earth, she never returned to it. The two sides were eternally separate, having no point of connection.

He let the end of the belt dangle loose again, holding only the buckle. “But it seems they overlooked a quality inherent in the nature of the universe.” Taking the end of the belt, he gave it a half twist and then brought it up to the buckle. “Now, you see, if I walk the belt, I pass one time around and circle underneath the buckle but I remain on the same surface and continue once more around the belt until I return to the buckle itself.”

“Ah,” said Liath, fascinated at once. She traced the surface of the belt all the way around twice without lifting her finger from the leather, and the second time she came back to the buckle, where she had started.

“I never thought of that!” she cried, amazed and intrigued. “The universe has a fold in it.”

“So you see,” said Eldest Uncle approvingly. “Although our land was flung away from Earth, the fold in the universe is bringing us back to where we started.”

He rose unsteadily, as if his knees hurt him. Extending an arm, he addressed the council. “On Earth, the measure of days and years moves differently than it does here. Soon, the full count of Great Years will have again run to completion thirteen times on Earth. The ending point will becoming the starting point, and we will come home.”

Cat Mask seemed about to blurt out a comment, but Eldest Uncle’s gaze stilled the words on his tongue. Ponderously, Feather Cloak pushed up to her feet. No one moved to help her, until Liath finally stepped toward her but was brought up short by Skull Earrings. The elderly man raised a hand, palm out, to show that she must not aid the pregnant woman who sat in the Eagle Seat.