Rellhannah had never lived in one place for more than two seasons. Her people, the Vantgra, had not always been wanderers. When Rell’s great-grandfather was alive, he had told magical stories about a green island across the sea. For all of his stories, Rell’s great-grandfather never wanted to talk about what had happened to that beautiful land, or how they came to be the Vantgra, unwanted refugees in the desert land of Kindri. Tragic as the story was, Rell felt no sadness in it. Her world was her family, and they were their own kind of magic.
She was ten years old and playing the handclasp game with her baby sister Yenna when riders were spotted coming toward their camp. Two men finely dressed in blue tunics rode beside an older woman. The woman was like no one Rell had ever seen. Her hair held a myriad of colors, the pale dusty brown of the Kindri people, glimpses of fiery red, and streaks of silver white. Every piece of clothing she wore, from her boots to the hood of her cloak, was a pale gray color that somehow shimmered in the light. Her sharply boned face looked both ancient and childlike, its skin stretched thin, with only the slightest hint of lines around piercing eyes.
Stunned by the sight of the riders, no one called out in greeting or alarm until the group stood the very edge of their camp. Rell’s father and her second eldest brother, Toma, jumped up and moved toward them. The lady raised her hand. “We mean you no harm Master Vladi,” she said. Her voice was husky, an old woman’s voice. “I come on the king’s business.”
“Who are you?” demanded Vladi.
A faint smile touched the lady’s thin lips. “I am Clyr Nes, advisor to the king.”
Rell heard one of her aunts gasp and mutter, “Wisan!” The word for “witch” in the old language.
“If you’ve come for anen or cloth I’ve none to sell,” her father said, but Rell noticed there was a hint of respect in his voice. “You are welcome to stay and rest, if you wish.”
The lady nodded her head in agreement. “I have no need of your fabled armor, and though your women’s embroidery is fine, I’ve not come for that either. I will rest a bit though.” She held out one thin fingered hand and the men at her side, who had remained silent through the entire exchange, dismounted and lifted the lady down from her horse as if she were made of glass. Leaning on the men, she walked slowly across the camp and settled on a tall pallet of shae furs near the fire. “Thank you, Dyvyd,” she said giving the young man another small smile. She looked at Vladi. “Perhaps one of your people could show Dyvyd and Vel where they might water our horses?”
“Of course, lady,” Vladi said. “Toma, help these men.”
Toma shuffled from one foot to another, but then nodded. “Yes, Poppa.”
For the first time Clyr Nes looked around the camp. She seemed to focus on the children, locking severe green eyes on each one until she came to Rell. Her gaze clung to Rell’s with such power that Rell could not move or look away. Though it was noisy in the camp, Rell heard the woman’s voice as a whisper in her mind, “Come here, child.” Rell should have been frightened, but the voice was so warm that Rell felt only a need to please the lady.
Rell handed Yenna to her startled aunt and moved across the camp to where Clyr Nes sat with her father. Rell had almost reached the lady when her father noticed her, “Stay back, bria,” Rell’s father said, using her family’s nickname for her. “Leave the lady be.”
Clyr Nes put out her hand. “No Master Vladi, this is the child I have come to speak to you about.”
Vladi moved to stand between his daughter and Clyr Nes. “What do the Kindri want with my daughter?”
A small frown crossed the woman’s face, but her touch as she put her hand on Rell’s shoulder was gentle. “This child is your daughter, Master Vladi?”
“Yes,” Vladi said. “My eldest daughter.”
The smile returned to the lady’s face. “Then all this is not so much a mystery, the eldest are often so chosen.”
“Chosen, lady?” Rell asked, peeking out from behind her father.
“Yes, child, chosen.” She said focusing squarely on Rell, “What is your name little one?”
“Her name is Rellhannah,” Vladi said. “It means ‘Light of our Days’ in the old language.”
“And thus she shall be,” Clyr Nes said, leaning her head to consider Rell, before continuing, “if she has the heart.”
Rell’s mother stepped forward, placing a firm hand on her daughter’s shoulder. She repeated her husband’s question. “What is it you want with my child?” Hessa said.
Clyr Nes’s green eyes never left Rell’s, but she answered Hessa, “You have perhaps, even out here, heard of the Proterys?”
Rell had not, but she heard her mother’s sharp intake of breath. “But they are high born!” Hessa said.
Clyr Nes looked at Hessa and nodded. “Yes, it often happens that way, but that is not why the young women are chosen. A calling to the Proterys should be given by one through who is strong in the lannynt. We are but few these days. I am one of the last.”
Rell had heard stories about this lannynt from her father, some kind of power the Kindri people believed in. “What are the Proterys, Poppa?” Rell asked, holding onto the end of her father’s sleeve.
“They lady fighters who help the Kindri nobles,” Vladi told his daughter. Then he turned back to Clyr Nes. “What has this to do with Rellhannah?”
Clyr Nes locked her gaze onto Vladi. “Rellhannah is to be one of the Proterys.”
Hessa began to exclaim in the old tongue, and Rell’s brothers and sisters came running at the sound. Through all the noise, Rell once again heard the lady’s voice in her mind, “There will be grief child, but it will all come to good.”
Grief was an apt description of that day. Neither of Rell’s parents was fond of the idea of letting their child ride off with a trio of strangers, no matter what authority they had. In the end, Rell was certain that only the tribe’s fear of the king made them even consider the request of Clyr Nes. Rell was also equally certain that it was the kindness of this Clyr Nes that led her to negotiate rather than demand. They came to an agreement that Rell’s older brother Hesschen would be allowed to travel with Rell as far as the capital, Kindri Court. Above that, Clyr Nes made it clear that Rell’s family would be allowed to visit her whenever they chose.
Her father came to Rell hours later, long after she was usually expected to be asleep. He stuck his head into the tent Rell shared with her sisters. “Come Rellhannah, we must talk.”
They walked toward the center of the camp, to the ever-burning fire at its center. “What is it, Poppa?” Rell asked.
Vladi paced to the edge of the fire and stared into the flames. “Rellhannah, we have decided to allow you to go with them, but only if you are willing.” He turned back to her. “We will fight to our last bit of blood if you do not wish to do this.”
Rell swallowed. “Do you think I should go?”
Vladi turned and placed a huge hand under his daughter’s small chin. There were tears in his eyes, and drops sparkled in his dark beard. Rell had never seen her father look so sad. “I do not want you to leave us, but something in me says this is the path for you, bria.”
She took a deep breath. “If I say yes, when will I see you again?”
Vladi shook his head. “I do not know. It is at least a half a cycle’s journey to the city, across patches of the desert in which the shaes cannot go, and it would be unwise of me to leave the tribe for that long. But I can send Hesschen now and again, to make sure you are well. Perhaps in time…”
Her father had never been away from the tribe for more than a few days, let alone weeks. Rell knew what he was telling her. She sat down on one of the stones near the fire. “Why did she pick me, Poppa?”
Vladi sighed and sat down next to her. “That I cannot explain, bria. For, as much as I press, she cannot explain it to me. She says it is a ‘calling’ for you from this power, this lannynt, that they believe so much in.”
“Do you believe her, Poppa?” Rell asked.
“Do not tell your mother,” he said with a sad chuckle, “but I think I do. I have seen sometimes, in this place, things that happen…”
“What kind of things?”
He picked up a pebble from the ground and tossed it easily in the air, then again, until Rell wondered if he would answer. “Once, when I was a boy, my friend Petrav fell from the back of a horse and broke his leg. It was broken so badly that even after it healed, he could not walk straight. A year later, we helped a Kindri man dressed like this Clyr Nes. He had become stranded in the desert when his horse took a fall. The man had no money, no valuables, but he felt indebted to us. The day he left, he asked Petrav to go for walk with him. When Petrav came back, he walked straight, as if nothing ever happened.”
“How?” Rell asked.
“I do not know. Petrav himself did not know, but he knew it was the Kindri man who made him well. This man, he said it was the lannynt that cured Petrav, not him.”
“So I should go because of this power, because it says so?” Rell said, feeling confused.
“Perhaps, but there is another reason for you to do this, Rellhannah,” he pitched the stone and Rell listened to it skitter across the ground. “The Kindri, many of them, they do not like us. We are forbidden from buying land, they call us names. They do this because we are strange to them, because we have a dozen shades of dark hair and eyes, and skin that is not so pale as theirs. But if they see you as one of these Proterys, one of these chosen, perhaps they will learn we are not so different.”
“Are you saying I could help our people, Poppa?” Rell asked.
“Yes,” he said, finally smiling with the broad grin she loved so much. “Imagine that, if nothing else, you able to help us all. Will you go, bria?”
It took her a moment, but then she gave the only answer she could. “Yes, Poppa, I will go.”
Her father reached for the laces of his sword harness and undid them. Other than in sleep, Rell had never seen her father without the twin blades. The shorter of the two swords, the letka, was used for practical purposes, such as shearing shaes and cutting rope. The longer wickedly sharp riftka was worn on the back and used only for purposes of defense. Her father handed the swords to Rellhannah.
“Poppa, what are you doing?” she asked.
“You know that we do everything we can to find the means and the metal to make these swords for our people when they reach fifteen. You may not be here then. Also, Clyr Nes has told us that it is customary for the Proterys initiate’s family to give them the gift of a sword when they go into service. This is my gift.”
“But these are yours Poppa, how will you…”
“I have some being made for your brother Borren. I will take those, and his will have to wait. Do not argue with me, bria, I want you to have a piece of me with you in this strange place you go to. To remember who you truly belong to. Do you understand?”
Rell reached out and took the swords, clumsy as the weight fell into her hands. She looked up at her father. “Yes, Poppa, I understand.”
“Good,” Vladi said. Then he reached forward and gathered her, swords and all, into his embrace. “This is the beginning of big things for you, bria.”
The first big thing was having to climb onto a Vantgra horse with only a few belongings and her family’s love to keep with her as she traveled for days across the Kindri desert. When, weeks later, a towering stone city appeared on the horizon she felt the tug of fear in her belly, hard and cold.
Clyr Nes pulled the horses to a stop and reached out to lay a thin hand on Rell’s shoulder. “Be easy, young one. Soon this will be home.”
In the coming years Rell would make many friends and learn many amazing things. However, that one statement was the only prophecy of Clyr Nes which never came true.
Jenel Alan 