The Silence of Medair

Of course they would be looking for her. Especially after Estarion’s demand. Medair waited a moment more, to be certain Ileaha had not whispered anything else to the wind, then lay back down. She breathed the scent of clover, with damp earth lurking beneath. An ant ventured onto one hand, and she twitched it off. Only the calling of birds disturbed her peace. Lying there, Medair could forget about wars and oaths and the army at the gate.

With a curse she climbed to her feet, and shouldered her abandoned satchel. Of course she could not.

Bravi Fountain was within Remembrance Wall, near the southern gate. The fountain filled the centre of the square, which was actually more of a curved rectangle. It had been newly constructed in Medair’s time, in an area which had once been a slum, but was now a prosperous place. The fountain was a magical construct: round, rising four levels, with a sculpture at its peak which had a suspicious resemblance to the White Palace. It spurted water in almost every conceivable direction, a fine mist providing cool delight in Summer. She wondered if they still held parties there on warm nights, to watch the tinted pastel colours which appeared beneath the stars, and argue about whether something so frivolous as colouring water was a waste of magic.

There was something about large, open squares with fountains which attracted birds. A flock of grey and white pigeons landed a comfortable distance from the people clustered at one end of the square, then immediately took to the air once again. The crowd centred around a group of young women and a youth who would better be called boy than man. They were having a white-faced and tight-lipped discussion with unhappy parents about whether it was better for them to go join a battalion of reserves or stay to defend their homes in the event that Ahrenrhen and Ariensel fell. Ileaha, very plainly dressed, was seated quietly on the far rim of the shallow pool around the fountain, her attention on the crowd.

"No shouting," Medair said, having made her way with deliberate silence to the younger woman’s side. "No raised voices, no shoving or struggles. Even those with no Ibisian blood behave this way. Not unemotionally, but fantastically restrained. It takes something like the Conflagration to really jar all these careful good manners."

Ileaha, who had started violently when Medair first spoke, gave her a strange look in return for her brief lecture on Ibisian social demeanour. "You came," she said after a moment. "I did not believe you would."

"Didn’t you?" Medair sat down, cool mist soothing the back of her neck, a hint of mildew and pigeon dung tickling her nostrils. "Why send the wend-whisper, then?"

"Because I could not search all Athere, and you wear that set-charm against traces. But I knew you would hear a wend-whisper, and I needed to find you."

"You needed to find me." Medair frowned, for she had expected more of a search than Ileaha alone. Had they not–? "Why?"

Ileaha looked down at her hands, almost guiltily. "I…perhaps you might not care to know it, but finding you was a test. At least, I think that is what he meant."

"A test?"

"I don’t know what I would have done if you had not come," Ileaha went on distractedly, clenching her hands together. "I could not think of anything to do when he asked me to find you. Sitting here, praying that you would produce yourself, I have been searching my mind for ways to find a single person in all Athere. Nothing I can imagine was possible without the aid of a dozen, a hundred others. And I thought to be a Velvet Hand."

"It could be said that it took some ingenuity to think of a wend-whisper," Medair remarked, hiding her impatience. What mattered Ileaha’s career, when Athere itself might have no future? But then, Medair was trapped by people dead for centuries. At least Ileaha was looking ahead.

"That is different altogether. You found yourself. I don’t think he would consider that I had proved myself."

"He? Who sent you to find me?"

That finally pulled Ileaha’s eyes from her hands' attempts to strangle each other. "Cor-Ibis," she said, with an unspoken of course.

"Ah. With rumours of dead and blind and spell-shocked, I should have known that he would be completely unaffected by the casting," Medair said, her voice sounding as if she were angry because she had found that she was boundlessly glad, and hated herself for it.

"Not unaffected," Ileaha said, carefully. "He was, in truth, blinded for a short while, but that…passed. Wielding so much power – no, it did not leave him unchanged."

"Cor-Ibis sent you to find me, to test you," Medair said, thrusting emotional turmoil to the background again. "Don’t tell me you finally announced that you weren’t going to be las Theomain’s secretary?"