Chapter Nineteen
From the abandoned fort, Alenia guided Donan up along narrow game trails and then over hilly goat paths toward the northwest shore of the island.
A storm the following day caught them out in the open, pouring enough rain to soak them through before they could find shelter beneath an outcrop.
They decided to rest there to wait out the worst of it, and Donan settled his back against the earth, watching the water carve sudden channels through the hard soil.
Next to him, Alenia pushed her wet hair back and wiped the glistening water from her face.
He had not stopped thinking about the weight of the prophecy that she carried on her shoulders, and he decided to risk asking questions that he hoped would not offend her.
“Have you considered the possibility that your sister might be wrong?”
“You mean her prophecy about me?” Alenia laughed. “The Oracle Queen is never wrong.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“But…forgive me, I heard something from a woman on Temis.”
“What did you hear?”
He wondered if it was wise to have started down this road. “This would have been prior to your sister’s reign,” he added. “But I heard the queen before her failed to see the reapers coming.”
She frowned. “They would say that on Temis.” Then she leaned in closer, as if preparing to share a secret in her crowded tavern. “On Philios, they say the Oracle Queen did warn the Amazon Queen, but Etara refused to believe her.”
The implications of that settled quickly over Donan’s mind.
In the wake of the reapers, it would have been natural to look for someone to hold responsible, but the casting of blame on either the Amazons or the seers would have political consequences for all of Skovos. “What do you believe?” he asked.
“I suppose I believe the seers, but I’m not sure it matters. Even if Queen Etara did know, what could she have done? The Amazons died along with everyone else.”
The storm eventually passed, and they resumed their journey overland until they came down to a rocky coastal inlet with a makeshift pier tucked deep in its folds.
Three small boats lay at anchor there. Not Amazon warships, but sailing vessels for fishing or trading.
Donan noted that the harbor would not be visible to any ships passing by outside the narrow bay.
“What is this place?” he asked.
“It’s a market,” Alenia said. “Though not a strictly legal one.”
“A smugglers’ port?”
“We prefer to think of it as a free port.”
“Free from what?”
“The Askarra Guard.”
As they made their way toward the pier, Donan could see a few merchants waiting with carts and small wagons for the ships to be unloaded.
Suddenly, a man stepped into the path ahead of them, blocking their way with sword and shield.
Upon seeing Alenia, he gave her a nod and stepped aside to allow them through.
“The silks take almost everything,” she went on. “They claim they’re distributing it equally throughout the islands, but what we get back just doesn’t add up. It’s obvious they’re keeping the best for themselves, or they’re smuggling it for profit.”
Donan thought back to the bounty of the Harbormaster’s table and the trident stamp. “I’ve seen evidence of smuggling in Kingsport.”
“I’m sure you have,” she said as they reached the pier. “That’s why some of us have found independent ways to trade our wares.”
On the pier, Donan saw that the goods she referred to included basic commodities like grain and garden produce, as well as some manufactured goods such as bolts of woven fabric, iron, and copperware.
Nothing luxurious or decadent, just the common needs and comforts of life that they were otherwise being denied.
Of the three ships moored at the smugglers’ pier, one was bound for Celestia, and Alenia used her connections to secure them passage.
The small vessel offered little in the way of sleeping quarters, but it would carry them where they needed to go.
The voyage took longer than travel aboard the Arabel would have, owing to the slow speed of the small boat and the captain’s understandable choice to sail wide around Atanos.
Donan and Alenia spent that time getting better acquainted, though the lack of privacy from the ship’s crew kept their conversations away from more sensitive topics.
When they reached Celestia, they docked in a sheltered harbor on the northeast coast, where another free port operated in secret. From there, Alenia suggested they begin their search by asking the island’s astronomers if they had any knowledge of Donan’s associates.
“Who are these astronomers?” he asked.
“They’re a group of seers,” she said. “But instead of disfiguring themselves to gain the gift of foresight, they use the movement of the stars to divine the future.”
“How do the stars help them see the future?”
“You would have to ask them.” She offered him a wry grin. “But I’ve heard they guard their secrets from any they deem unworthy, so I wouldn’t expect an answer.”
“I will try to rein in my disappointment,” he said. “Where do we find these astronomers?”
She looked northward. “I’ve heard they have an observatory not far from here.”
Donan accepted this with a nod. “Let’s start there.”
He soon discovered that Celestia was a far more sparsely inhabited island than either Temis or Philios.
Farmsteads they passed appeared abandoned, but longer ago than Malthael’s Reaping.
In the distance at the center of the island, there stood the remains of a large and empty city.
Its broken spires and fallen walls lay on the horizon like the pale bones of a gargantuan beast, and an eerie pall of silence hung over the ruins.
Donan wondered if the cause of its abandonment lay on the western horizon, where the volcanic island of Skartara, endlessly threatening to erupt, kept the sky in that direction perpetually darkened with smoke and vapor.
But Celestia was not entirely devoid of life.
Grass carpeted the hills. Hardy flowering shrubs sprouted in the sheltered crannies, a curious white fungus grew prolifically in the ruins, and tough little songbirds trilled from sinewy trees.
Soon the Observatory appeared above them, crowning an eminence of bare rock.
The structure appeared to be a Firstborn creation, built from the same white marble as much of Temis, with a single tower rising from a massive angular pedestal.
Concentric metal rings glinted atop the tower, and statues of angels and demons stood guard around its base.
After ascending a winding path to reach it, they found its main doors open to them.
An astronomer stood before the entrance, wearing robes much like those Donan had seen the seers wearing back on Philios, except these were decorated with the orbits of stars and constellations sewn in silver thread.
The astronomer wore no veil. She had dark skin beneath her hood, with full cheeks and a serene smile.
“Welcome, Horadrim,” she said.
Her greeting brought Donan to a halt, and Alenia turned to look at him in surprise.
“Horadrim?” she said.
He nodded without looking at her and addressed his question to the astronomer. “How did you know I am one of the Horadrim?”
She gestured toward the sky, her wrist loose, fingers falling open. “We foresaw your coming in the movement of the stars.”
That did not precisely give him an answer. “How do the stars—?”
“Please,” the astronomer said, “enter our Observatory, where we will try to answer your questions as best we can.” She stepped aside from the door and gestured them inward with her open palm.
Donan glanced at Alenia. She raised her eyebrows in uncertainty, but they moved toward the doorway, past the waiting astronomer, and into the building.
Within the Observatory, he found a serene space devoted to the night sky.
A vast mosaic covered the floor with a map of the constellations.
Mythical heroes and beasts wheeled their way around the tower beneath his feet, the stars that defined their shapes glinting like jewels.
Bookshelves of texts and scrolls drew Donan’s eyes immediately, as did the astronomical equipment standing upon worktables that lined the walls.
Tall murals depicted the legendary history of Skovos, the founding of the Amazons, and the finding of the Sightless Eye.
“Every happening has its season,” said the astronomer as she came up behind Donan. “Just as the apple tree blossoms in the spring, and the ripened wheat stalk bends in the fall, so does everything have a time of occurrence. The stars foretold it was the season for the Horadrim to return.”
“Return?” Donan said. “So, we have come to you before.”
The astronomer inclined her head. “Of course. We have exchanged much knowledge and wisdom with your order through the centuries.”
“Did the stars also tell you why I have come?”
She shook her head with a gentle smile. “No, they do not explain why seasons occur. They simply help us to observe their passing, and to predict their next coming. So, perhaps you will tell me why you have come?”
“I am looking for a Horadric expedition led by a mage named Sho-Ren.”
The astronomer’s smile fell. “I am sorry to say they are no longer here. They stayed with us for a time. You may recognize their influence in some of our devices and machinery of celestial measurement. When the reapers came, the Horadrim fought valiantly to defend us, and three of their number died. They departed not long after that.”
Donan was dismayed to hear of the company’s losses. “Do you know where they went?”
“Again, I am sorry, but I do not.”
Donan bowed his head in disappointment and defeat. None of the clues thus far had brought him any closer to discovering the fate of the expedition.
Alenia then spoke, asking, “Where did they live when they were here on Celestia?”
“They made use of a residence to the south,” answered the astronomer.
Donan looked up. “May we go see it?”
“Of course.”