Chapter 17
Midori found herself in a long hallway of some sort of fortress. She took a step and found the stone floor to be strangely solid. A silver wolf sat in the middle of the hall, as if waiting.
"Do you want me to follow?" she asked the wolf. The wolf nodded and ran off, Midori hurried after it. "Wait! I'm not as fast as you! Wait!" she called, echoes ringing in the silent passage.
When Midori finally caught up, the she-wolf, Silver, paused outside a door of bronze and yellow silk. "Pass into this shrine girl, but speak nothing of what you see." she whispered.
Midori parted one of the cloths and stepped into a small room of polished white marble and stone. Lanterns hung from hooks on the walls and gave off an eerie gold light. A priest in a robe of crimson red was standing by a rectangular table, draped with a dark plum cloth trimmed with gold tassels, and murmuring a short prayer while spreading incense across something that lay on the table. Finished, the priest left through the door of yellow and brown cloth asMidori stepped up for a closer look, her eyes rested upon a long silver sword. The hilt was patterned with white diamonds and green emeralds; they gleamed in the dark silver of the hilt.
As she traced a finger along the intricate designs, the sword seemed to hum, a low sound that echoed throughout the room. Midori took a step back, startled and began backing out of the room, eyes on the sword.
Suddenly the candlelight from the lanterns flickered and went out, Midori's scream of fright caught in her throat as darkness settled over her. A strange mist appeared, cloaking something in its clouding haze.
A woman stepped forward from the mist, she was dressed in thin white silk that whispered and sighed as if it were a breath of white wind, and her long black hair was braided and coiled at the back of her head to form a tight bun. The woman gazed at her with the darkest green eyes Midori had ever seen and as the woman handed her a silver bow and quiver of arrows, Midori saw many wolves come forward, most were white and gray but some were as black as ebony wood and brown as spring soil. Midori didn't understand all this; she wanted to figure out why she was here, why was everything so secretive? All she had wanted was a shield.
The woman turned and gripped the hilt of the humming sword, lifting it from the table and tapped the squire's shoulders and head as if knighting her.
Midori struggled to speak but no sound escaped her dry throat, she stumbled and fell, dropping the bow and quiver with a soft clatter on the stone floor. Scrambling to her feet she tripped over the cloth and went sprawling to land on her back, she let out a gasp as a searing pain thundered in her skull as the woman spoke:
"You need not to be afraid, child, I have come to show you what the Scanran demon wants with you" the older woman held out a thin-boned, callused hand to help the girl up.
Midori took the offered hand and stood, suddenly images flashed before her mind's eye, the Scanran demon's eyes burned into her skull as if searching for a weakness that burned deep within her soul, she felt the heat of fire but did not see the flame, she felt a chill though there were no windows nor a draft in the room. Suddenly a voice, a cold-blooded voice, sounding like the scraping of glass against rock, whispered to her, "I want your soul, girl, I wish your doom, I control your fate now…Your friend is the key to your end…we shall see who is the champion, in the battle of hell and Tortall…" A long anguished cry pierced the silence that followed, like a fruit on the blade of a knife. Midori shut her eyes and felt tears prick at the back of her mind as the cry rang and echoed in her skull. Opening her eyes to find the pain and voice gone, she sighed and without thinking she blurted out her thoughts: "Why am I here Goddess? In this particular dream?"
The woman chuckled, "You shall learn in time...Knighthood has many paths"
Midori was thrown from the dream vision in a flash of white light and she opened her eyes to find a fiery pain in her head and as she touched the back, her hand fell on a wetness that sent bile rising in her throat. She got up shakily and stumbled over to the privy to empty the contents of her stomach as a sudden nausea washing over her.
Wiping her mouth, she took a cloth, wet it with cold water and washed the cut on her head, wincing as it stung. How long had it been?
Banishing that thought as she heard a knock on the door, she felt the blood clotting on her head and quickly answered.
Owen entered with murmured thanks and looked worried at the blood staining Midori's hands and the dried blood in her hair. "How'd that happen?" he demanded.
"I fell." she told him. That answer wasn't really a lie, only half the truth.
"Horse manure" muttered Owen as his expression softened into a smile, "Still, I think you should get that looked at, you've cleaned it up good. I have something for you."
"You do?" Midori sounded surprised.
"Of course. I heard of all the beatings from that Stone Mountain from your friends, and from Ceylon's reports you can fight quite well with the Shang arts, besides you turn sixteen in less then three days. After three more years, you will be a fully-fledged lady knight and I won't be able to see you much."
Midori sat on the edge of her bed as Owen sat besides her, holding a leather sheath in his hands. "Here" he whispered, "It's from me, Kel and your friends, and the magic input is from Neal and Alanna." Owen explained.
Midori pulled out the sword and gasped, the pain in her head throbbed and slowed to a steady ache. "I've seen this blade," she murmured, "In a dream"
Owen didn't look surprised, merely taking it as a god's trick. "Your friends also gave you a title, Midori: Midori 'the Healer' of Queenscove. It's hardly a fearful name, for you yourself are not a terrible person. You remind me of Kel sometimes," Owen chuckled, "It's amazing how we change over such a short time, one minute we're studying to become knights, the next, we are teaching squires of our own…"
Midori nodded, eyes gazing at the blade, her reflection stared back. The Goddess had been right knighthood did have many paths. She was walking on one.