The Voice of Prophecy (Dual Magics Book 2) Read online

  The Voice of Prophecy

  Dual Magics Book 2

  Meredith Mansfield

  Copyright 2014 Meredith Mansfield

  Kindle Edition

  Cover Images:

  Background Image: Copyright Cappan | Dreamstime.com

  Figure: Copyright Nomadsoul1 | Dreamstime.com

  Table of Contents

  The Story So Far From

  Chapter 1: Thunder on the Plains

  Chapter 2: Transformations

  Chapter 3: Burn Out

  Chapter 4: Betrayal

  Chapter 5: The Shaman

  Chapter 6: Avaza Again

  Chapter 7: Plains Crossing

  Chapter 8: Homecoming

  Chapter 9: Questions but Few Answers

  Chapter 10: The Harbinger

  Chapter 11: Plots

  Chapter 12: Settling In

  Chapter 13: Trouble

  Chapter 14: The Shield

  Chapter 15: Opportunity

  Chapter 16: Confrontation

  Chapter 17: Aftermath

  Chapter 18: Consequences

  Chapter 19: Family Matters

  Chapter 20: Defense

  Chapter 21: Revenge

  Chapter 22: Birth

  Chapter 23: Forgiveness

  Chapter 24: Archery and Madness

  Chapter 25: Reconciliation

  Chapter 26: Brothers

  Chapter 27: Unwitting Informer

  Chapter 28: Family Reunion

  Chapter 29: Miceus

  Chapter 30: Contingency Plans

  Chapter 31: Zeda

  Chapter 32: Discontent

  Chapter 33: Visit

  Chapter 34: Fear

  Chapter 35: Ritual

  Chapter 36: Eagles

  Chapter 37: Recruiting

  Chapter 38: Home Again

  Chapter 39: Miceus Lost

  Chapter 40: Final Plans

  Chapter 41: Winter’s End

  Chapter 42: Springing the Plot

  Chapter 43: Attack

  Chapter 44: Kidnapped

  Chapter 45: Bound

  Chapter 46: Rescue

  Chapter 47: Savara

  Chapter 48: Nothing Goes According to Plan

  Chapter 49: Open Seat

  Chapter 50: Change in High Places

  Chapter 51: Guild Council

  Chapter 52: The Voice Speaks

  Chapter 53: Exorcism

  Excerpt

  About the Author

  The Story So Far From

  The Shaman’s Curse

  (Or What You’ll Need to Know if You Didn’t Read The Shaman’s Curse)

  On a forbidden adventure to the river, fifteen-year-old Vatar and his friends were caught in a flash flood. Vatar's uneasiness and insistence on leaving saved three of them, but his best friend, who happened to be the only son of the tribe's shaman, was swept away and killed. Vatar was badly injured trying to save him. The shaman, Maktaz, unjustly blamed Vatar and the other two boys for his son's death.

  In order to avoid the shaman's vengeance, Vatar's parents took him away to Caere, a city on the sea coast. Caere was the main trading partner of the plains-dwelling Dardani and also the original home of Vatar's mother. While there, Vatar showed an affinity for working with iron and steel. Vatar's Uncle Lanark offered to train him as a blacksmith—which would make him the first Dardani to know how to work iron and steel. Vatar stayed in Caere and his cousin, Arcas, went to the plains with Vatar’s family intending to improve trade with the Dardani and assure his future as a merchant.

  In Caere, Vatar discovered a family secret—his mother’s Dardani husband was not Vatar’s true father. His father was one of the Fasallon, the ruling class of Caere who used magic to bolster their reign. The Fasallon’s greatest fear was based on a prophecy of a ‘Fasallon who is not a Fasallon’ who would end their rule. They’d never allowed a half-Fasallon child to grow up outside their control—and now they’d discovered Vatar. But Vatar was already grown and a member of a powerful guild, so they merely kept a close watch on him to assure themselves that Vatar had no inherited his father’s Fasallon magic.

  However, Vatar grew up indoctrinated in Dardani superstitions. The Dardani believed that all magic came from Spirits. The magic conferred by their connection to their totem spirits was considered good—although it wasn’t called magic. They believed all other magic came from Evil Spirits. He denied having any trace of Fasallon magic. He even dismissed his occasional brief visions of a girl with hair the color of flame as mere daydreams.

  Vatar was called back to the plains early because his mother was ill. She survived thanks to a Healer Vatar’s Fasallon father sent to help her. Vatar stayed until his clan went to the summer gathering of the clans at the Zeda waterhole, planning to return to Caere from there. When his clan arrived at Zeda, they discovered that a pair of forest tigers (think saber-toothed tigers with the hide of a rhinoceros) were terrorizing the summer village. The tigers were not only raiding the herds; they’d also attacked several people around the waterhole. The Dardani had never hunted tigers because they were too dangerous and too hard to kill.

  Maktaz, the shaman, announced that the Spirits had decreed that the manhood test for that year would be to hunt the tigers—and that Vatar must take part in the hunt. Vatar remembered a story he’d heard in Caere about one of the early Fasallon who killed a sea dragon with a spear. So he and his friends planned a strategy and Vatar set to work forging spears for all the boys who would be forced to participate in the hunt. Without realizing it, he sang power into the blades. With these spears, the boys succeeded in killing the tigers, earning themselves hero status within the tribe.

  This won Vatar the attention of Avaza, a beautiful young Dardani girl. This was a new and intoxicating experience for Vatar. After a whirlwind courtship, Avaza returned to Caere with Vatar as his year mate. Dardani marriage customs required that year mates practice birth control using an herb that was readily available on the plains. At any point, year mates could split up with no shame on either party.

  Avaza wasn’t happy in Caere, where women had far less freedom and respect than among the Dardani. In Caere, birth control was available only from the Healers and normally only for medical reasons. One of the Healers gave her difficulty over it. After that, she put off her visits to the Healers. Vatar, used to much stronger women, was frustrated with her dependence on him even for the simplest things. Their relationship began to fracture. Then, Avaza got pregnant.

  When they returned to Zeda the following summer, Avaza left Vatar and returned to her own clan. Their twins—a boy, Zavar, and a girl, Savara—were born a few weeks later. This put Vatar into a quandary. The twins belonged to his clan—the Lion Clan—but they needed to be with their mother. However, Avaza was Raven Clan—the same as the shaman. And he was afraid to leave the twins within Maktaz’s reach once the clans split up in the autumn. In the end, he convinced Avaza to go with his clan on the condition that he would return to Caere for the winter.

  Vatar and Arcas formed a partnership to manage the trade with the Dardani and the more isolated Modgud tribe. Arcas would do the actual trading. Vatar would make the metal goods and do the repairs. They bought a derelict farm outside the city walls where Vatar could set up his own forge.

  When the partners returned to Zeda the following summer, Avaza was forced to leave the twins with Vatar. Resentful, she allowed Maktaz to persuade her to tell him about Vatar—things like his other father in Caere. The shaman wove these innocent facts into a tissue of lies in order to persuade the Dardani that Vatar had been possessed by an Evil Spirit. Maktaz wanted to work them up into demanding an e
xorcism—a violent ritual that used pain to drive out the Evil Spirit and one which would put Vatar completely at Maktaz’s mercy.

  Vatar’s stepfather tried to convince him to return to Caere. Vatar refused. Maktaz’s accusations impacted the twins as well. The only way they could be free to live among the Dardani without fear was for him to find a way to put an end to this vendetta.

  Things came to a head when unusual atmospheric phenomena persuaded a significant number of the Dardani to Maktaz’s contention. First, spirit fire (St. Elmo’s fire) was seen above Vatar’s forge. Then, when Maktaz prepared to accuse Vatar, ball lightning exploded between them, causing Maktaz to suffer a small stroke.

  Vatar saved the situation by denouncing Maktaz’s actions and challenging him to an Ordeal. Maktaz was honor-bound to accept—or else admit that Vatar’s charges were true. Maktaz’s Ordeal was set as spending a year alone in the Northern Wilderness. Vatar’s was harsher: a year alone in the Great Forest—the place Dardani fear most. The Ordeals also required that both men be severed from their clans and the protection of the totem spirits.

  Arcas rode to the related tribe, the Modgud, where he had friends, to ask them to provide a temporary shaman for the Dardani and to train a new shaman to take Maktaz’s place. He also arranged for a couple of the Modgud to help Vatar learn how to survive in the Forest. When Arcas returned, Vatar’s stepfather asked him to ride back to Caere and let Vatar’s real father, Veleus, know what was going on.

  Veleus asked for the details concerning the Ordeal. In response to his questions, Arcas revealed that a brother may choose to share the Ordeal. On learning this, Veleus called in two of his other sons. Orleus, the Captain of the Guard in an outpost town who was an avid hunter in his spare time. His skills might prove useful in the Great Forest. And Cestus, the only one of his half-brothers Vatar had met and become friends with. They set out to catch up to Vatar, who was already somewhere in the Forest.

  In the Forest, Vatar discovered that he was not alone. He saw signs of others, but didn’t encounter them until one day he went down to the stream for water and found a pair of red-haired girls bathing there. He turned away to give them their privacy, but stepped on a twig. Three red-haired boys immediately surrounded him and challenged him about spying on the girls, which he denied. Following this, the boys harassed Vatar with various small malicious pranks in an attempt to drive him out of the Forest.

  Things came to a head when Vatar attempted to kill a deer. His arrow missed the buck he was aiming at and instead glancingly struck a white stag. Vatar immediately knew there was something wrong about that stag. He went back to his camp, but the boys followed him there—except not as boys. They were in the shapes of a bear, a wolf, and the wounded white stag. They attacked Vatar and in the melee he stabbed the stag in the gut with his spear. As the stag fell, it changed back into one of the boys. The others rushed in—back in their true, human forms—and carried the wounded boy away.

  Vatar knew that the wounded boy would die and that the survivors would come after him once that happened. Four against one—and using a magic he couldn’t counter. Since he couldn’t leave the Forest in the direction of the plains, Vatar packed up what he could carry and headed deeper into the Forest, hoping to escape in that direction. His progress across the Forest was stopped by a mountain range. He turned along the mountain range, seeking a pass.

  He found the pass just as the others caught up to him. They used more magic to cause the stones of the pass to rise up and strike him. Vatar tried to battle through, his mind repeating “Help!” over and over again, but a rock struck him on the head and he fell unconscious.

  A group on the other side of the pass—actually, teachers wondering why the group of five graduating students hadn’t returned yet—heard his mental cry for help. They reached the top of the pass just as Vatar fell and drove off the former students attacking him. They carried Vatar over the pass to get him to a healer.

  Orleus and Cestus failed to catch up to Vatar before snow closed the pass, so they return to the Dardani for the winter.

  Vatar woke in the valley beyond the pass to find that the red-haired woman, Thekila, he’d daydreamed about for years was real and one of his rescuers—and she was just as curious about him as he was about her. During Vatar’s recovery, they became close friends.

  The place was called simply the Valley and it was the home of the Valson, a group of people in some ways very similar to the Fasallon. They had magic similar to that of the Fasallon, too. Specifically, he’d been brought to the Academy, where young Valson were taught to use their Powers. Thekila was a teacher at this Academy.

  Meanwhile, Maktaz cheated on his Ordeal. He sneaked back south where some sympathizers left a shelter and supplies for him. But he wasn’t careful enough and he was captured and held for judgment by the whole tribe when they next met at Zeda. Still determined to strike against Vatar, he persuaded some of the young men that Vatar’s children were a danger to the tribe and incited them to kidnap and murder the two-year-old twins.

  Vatar sensed his son’s panic during the attack. Thekila coached him through use of a form of magic called Far Sight in order to reassure himself that his son was all right. He saw the children safe, but that his stepfather was wounded and that Cestus and someone else (Orleus) were there. Unable to deny his magic any longer, Vatar consented to train until the spring melt opened the pass so he could return home.

  As spring neared, the four former students who had harassed and attacked Vatar return. One of the girls had overused her alternate shape—a white antelope—and was stuck, unable to return to her true human form. The other three were brought before the Valson Council, where they were judged to have broken the Tenets by which the Valson lived. They were exiled. Enraged, many of their family members chose to go with them, but first they made it clear that they blamed Vatar for everything that had happened.

  Over the winter, Vatar and Thekila grew closer. When it was finally time for Vatar to return, Thekila went with him as his wife. Her best friend, Quetza chose to go along, too, just in case any of the exiles tried to make good on their threats. As they started across the Forest, they were followed, but not by the exiles. Thekila’s younger brother, Theklan, was determined not to be left behind.

  Trev, the temporary shaman provided by the Modgud, examined Vatar prior to his re-entry to the tribe, drawing out a full account of what had happened. Where a Dardani shaman would have ostracized Vatar for his magic, Trev seemed to take it in stride. Vatar was returned to the tribe and allowed to rejoin the Spirit of the Lion, his clan’s totem.

  Maktaz, on the other hand, was sentenced to be exiled for cheating on his Ordeal. He couldn’t resist one more attempt to get revenge on Vatar. He grabbed Vatar’s own knife and tried to stab him with it. Thekila prevented this with the Valson ability to manipulate inanimate objects with their magic. Thwarted, Maktaz attempted a dying curse. Vatar used his newly-learned magic to project an image of the Spirit of the Lion to distract the ex-shaman, intending to take up the discarded knife and kill him before he could complete the curse. The image startled Maktaz into a massive stroke, killing him.

  Vatar and Thekila declared themselves life mates before the tribe.

  Chapter 1: Thunder on the Plains

  Vatar drew in a deep breath, relishing the scent of the grass under his horse’s hooves and even the slightly charged smell of the impending storm. The plains were a great circle around him, horizon to horizon, just as they should be. It was good to be home.

  One side of his lips quirked up at that thought. It was indeed good to be home at last, but here he was, riding away from his village and most of his family. Much as he loved all of them and had missed them, it wasn’t possible to get much privacy in a Dardani village. Newlyweds should really have at least their own hut to themselves, not have to share it with his two-year-old twins and Thekila’s younger brother. Though the twins weren’t nearly as much of an obstacle as an eleven-year-old boy. He’d been forced to i
nvent these “riding lessons” for Thekila in order to manufacture a little privacy.

  He turned his head to check on Thekila. The riding lessons weren’t just an excuse. She’d never ridden a horse until she came out here with him and she did need to learn. It never ceased to amaze him how that petite body could contain a spirit that was so immense—and beautiful. The fiery red hair, dulled to the color of cooling embers under the heavy clouds, seemed a fair indication of how brightly that spirit shone to him.

  Thekila turned in her saddle to look behind them for the third time.

  “Expecting someone?” Vatar asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.

  Thekila shrugged. “Just checking to make sure Theklan hasn’t tried to follow us again.”

  Vatar reached across to take her hand. “He won’t be following us today. I asked Kiara to keep an eye on him.” He couldn’t suppress a grin. His little sister was nothing if not persistent.

  Thekila’s gasp turned into a giggle. “You didn’t. You know how embarrassed he is to be followed around by a girl.”

  Vatar’s smile widened unrepentantly. “He’ll recover. Someday, he may even like it. Anyway, Kiara will make sure he stays where he’s supposed to be. The point is to have a little time away from your brother, after all.”

  Thekila grinned wickedly. “I know.”

  Vatar leaned over to give her a promissory kiss. Not too far now to the place he had in mind. They’d be snug under cover of the tent tied behind his saddle before the lowering clouds released their rain.

  They hadn’t gone much farther when Vatar felt the familiar awareness of lions. After more than a year, it was comforting to feel this manifestation of his connection to the Spirit of the Lion, his clan totem, again. These lions were hunting, so he turned just a little farther to the east, swinging wide around them. Just because he was Lion Clan didn’t mean it was safe to ride too close to a hunting pride.

  “Why did we turn?” Thekila asked.

  “Lions. Over there.” Vatar pointed to the west.