Blood of the Fold

They had been carried by Sisters who went on journeys to recover boys born with the gift. More often than not, the Sisters had had to travel through the barrier, through the Valley of the Lost, going into the New World to recover the boy and put a Rada'Han around his neck so that the gift would not harm him while he learned to control his magic. Once beyond the barrier there was no turning back for instructions or guidance; one journey through and back was all that was possible for each Sister. Until now — Richard had destroyed the towers and their storms of spells.

A young boy with no understanding of the gift could not control it, and his magic sent out telltale signs that could be detected by Sisters at the palace who were sensitive to such disturbances in the flows of power. Not enough Sisters had this talent to risk sending them on journeys, so others were sent, and they carried a journey book to be able to communicate with the palace. If Sisters were to go after the boy, and something happened — he moved, for example — they would need guidance to find him in his new location.

Of course, a wizard could teach the boy to control the gift in order to avoid its many dangers, and in fact that was the preferred method, but wizards were not always available, or willing. The Sisters had long ago established an accord with the wizards in the New World. In the absence of a wizard, the Sisters of the Light were allowed to save a boy's life by taking him to the Palace of the Prophets for training in the use of his gift. For their part, the Sisters had vowed never to take a boy who had a wizard willing to teach him.

It was a truce backed by a death sentence to any Sister who ever again entered the New World if the agreement were ever violated. Prelate Annalina had violated that agreement in order to bring Richard to the palace. Verna had been the unwitting instrument of the violation.

At any one time there could be several Sisters gone on a journey to recover a boy. Verna had found a whole box of journey books back in her office, tied together in matching pairs. The journey books were twinned, each working only with its correct twin. Precautions were always taken before a journey was undertaken; the two books were taken to separate locations and tested, just to be sure a Sister wasn't sent off with the wrong book. Journeys were dangerous, that was why the Sisters also carried a dacra up their sleeve.

Usually, a journey lasted a few months, and on rare occasions they had lasted as long as a year. Verna's journey had lasted over twenty years. Nothing like that had ever happened before, but then, it had been three thousand years since one like Richard had been born. Verna had lost twenty years she could never recover. She had aged in the outside world. The twenty-odd years of aging her body had undergone would have taken near to three hundred years at the Place of the Prophets, She had not simply given up twenty years to go on Prelate Annalina's mission; she had in reality given up close to three hundred years.

Worse, Annalina had known all along where Richard was. Even though she had done as she had in order to allow the proper prophecies to come to pass so they could stop the Keeper, it hurt that she had never told Verna that she was being sent out to throw away that much of her life as a decoy.

Verna reprimanded herself. She had not thrown anything away. She had been doing the Creator's work. Just because she hadn't known all the facts at the time made it no less important. Many people toiled their whole lives at meaningless things. Verna had toiled at something that had saved the world of the living.

Besides that, those twenty years were perhaps the best years of her life. She had been out in the world on her own, with two other Sisters of the Light, learning about strange places and strange peoples. She had slept under the stars, seen distant mountains, plains, rivers, rolling hills, villages, towns, and cities that few others had seen. She had made her own decisions and accepted the consequences. She had never had to read reports; she had lived the stuff of reports. No, she had not lost anything. She had gained more than any of the Sisters sitting back here for three hundred years would ever gain.

Verna felt a tear drop onto her hand. She reached up and wiped her cheek. She missed her journey. All that time she had thought she hated it, and only now did she realize how much it meant to her. She turned the journey book over in her trembling fingers, feeling the familiar size and weight — the familiar grain of the leather, the familiar three little bumps at the top of the front cover.