Stealers' Sky

"I'd better have a talk with her," Dayrne said. "Somebody close the gate." He let out a heavy breath and looked around suddenly. "And what are you all doing here? Who's ru

He left them then, and went to look for Chenaya. He would check the aviary out back in case she was still there with her pet falcon, but first, since it was closer, he'd check her room. In the main hall he started up the great staircase. Then, remembering Rashan, he happened to glance down the hallway to the peristyle and glimpsed his mistress just going through the doors. Dayrne turned and hurried after her.

A strange scene greeted him as he entered. Chenaya shot a look his way and swiftly closed her hand around something she'd been showing Rashan. The priest's face was white as a virgin's wedding sheets. He stared fearfully at Dayrne, as if he'd been caught in a criminal act.

Obviously, Dayrne had interrupted something, Chenaya walked a few paces away from the priest and tried to act nonchalant while she slipped something into a small bag that hung on a thong about her neck. Rashan licked his lips, his eyes darting every which way. Dayrne thought he looked like a mouse suddenly come face-to-face with a very big cat.

Dayrne was in no mood for games. "What is it, Cheyne?" he insisted. "What have you got there?"

Chenaya gave him a stubborn look and dropped the purse down the front of her tunic. Rashan wrung his hands. "I've got something to do," he said suddenly, and he headed toward the door.

Dayrne caught the priest's wrist as he tried to go past. "Oh, no you don't!" He gently but firmly pushed Rashan back. Then he turned again to Chenaya. "You've never kept anything from me, Cheyne, not since we were kids. Don't start now."

Chenaya bit her lip, her face mirroring some i

"Let me help, damn it!" Dayrne shouted suddenly. His frustration and worry built past the point of control. He wanted to reach out and rip the purse from her neck, or grab Chenaya and shake her, or, gods help him, just wrap his arms around her and hold her close until she broke down and told him everything. That last, he knew, would never happen.

Chenaya gave him a doubtful look. Dark circles ringed her puffy eyes, and her cheeks were gaunt. Dayrne realized then that she had not even taken off the armor she had worn last night. Even her garments were the same.

He met her gaze, and this time his eyes did the pleading.

It was enough. Slowly, Chenaya pulled out the purse again and poured the huge diamond into her open palm for him to see. It drew the weak light in the room like a sponge and gave off fantastic flashes of fire in exchange. Dayrne caught his breath.

"It's called the Fire in God's Eye," Rashan said in a worried voice as he came to join them. He lifted his own hand over the stone, as if warming his fingers before a fire. Tiny dazzling points of light reflected on his skin. "There's another jewel just like it," he continued in a bare whisper. "A twin. Sometimes, they're called the Savankala's Eyes, because they're mounted in the holy sunburst in the great Temple in Ranke."

Dayrne had heard of the stones, of course. He looked incredulously at Chenaya. "You stole it?"

She nodded slowly.

"Just the one," he pressed, "or both of them?"

She tapped the diamond with a finger, indicating just the one jewel.

"And this has something to do with why you can't or won't speak?" he asked again, and again she nodded.

Dayme began to pace. He was doing a lot of that lately, it seemed. He knew of the stones, but he'd never seen them. Until recently, he'd never been much of a god worshipper, and he'd never been in the Great Temple at Ranke. He turned to Rashan as Chenaya put the diamond back into its purse once again. A sudden suspicion flared up within him. "What do you know about this?" he said to the priest. "You're Savankala's high holy-holy in this city. Is this why she left Sanctuary? Did you send her to steal this?"

Rashan wrung his hands, and he gave Dayme a look of pained offense. "No! No!" he protested. "I wouldn't have dared! She didn't say a word to me before she left town!"

Dayrne caught the priest by the sleeve. "Then why was she showing it to you?"

Angrily, Chenaya knocked Dayrne's hand away from Rashan, and she stepped between them. Then her expression softened, and she eased the priest back toward a marble bench and motioned for him to sit.

Rashan folded his hands in his lap to keep them still. "Each jewel is invested with a portion of Savankala's power," the priest went on in a rush. "They were the god's own gift to the Rankan nation, given generations ago when the Empire was young, as His personal sign of divine favor."

"They're magic?" Dayrne grumbled. He turned to Chenaya again. "Then you are cursed?"

She shook her head violently.

"Maybe this will help." Daphne sauntered into the room, bearing a flat, brown box, which, when its hinged lid was opened, exposed a smooth sheet of soft, wax tallow, and a delicate bone stylus. She offered these to Chenaya, along with a smile of welcome. The two women exchanged embraces and stood apart again. "Just because she can't talk doesn't mean you can't still get some answers." She continued lightly. "Personally, I think I prefer her this way."

Chenaya ignored Daphne, took the wax tablet, and began to write in the soft substance with the point of the stylus. A moment later, she showed the box to Rashan. It was not writing at all, but a drawing of a sunburst.

Daphne raised an eyebrow. "She's no Lalo," she commented.

The priest peered closely at the wax. "The holy sunburst in Ranke," he said, squinting.

Chenaya shook her head and drew the symbol for Sanctuary beneath the sunburst. Then she pulled the purse from around her neck. Without removing the diamond, she thrust it down in the center of her drawing.

Rashan's face turned a new shade of pale. "Mount it in our sunburst?" he exclaimed with sudden comprehension. "This is stolen! God would strike me dead and destroy the temple!"

Chenaya shook her head emphatically and scrawled on the tablet. His permission.

The priest's expression underwent a slow transformation. His eyes filled with a queer light, and he rose to his feet. "You've accepted it, then. You've spoken with Him again." He reached out and grasped Chenaya by the shoulders. "You are truly the Daughter of the Sun!"

Dayrne watched as Chenaya's face crinkled with irritation and she brushed the priest's hands away. It was an old argument between Rashan and Cheyne. It was no secret that Chenaya was favored by the Bright Father, but the priest had been possessed of a strange fanaticism for some time now that she was, in fact, the sun-god's true daughter. Rashan had even tried to convince Dayrne, and with the help of an even stranger painting, which hung in Chenaya's rooms, he'd almost succeeded.

Chenaya rubbed the heel of her palm over the wax surface, wiping away the old markings, smoothing it again for more writing. With hasty precision, she carved two smaller sunbursts side by side. Under one, she put the symbol for Sanctuary. Under the other, the symbol for Ranke. Then she wrote, Savankala's will.

Rashan's face transformed. His look of worry turned to determination and excitement. "One in Ranke, and one in Sanctuary," he cried. "Then we must do it immediately." He spun toward Dayrne, gesticulating, his hands aflutter. "This explains the sky of late," he said, "Savankala has risked much to send us this prize. This jewel has traveled without the proper consecrations. Until it is safely mounted in His temple, He is half blind." He touched Daphne's arm as if the two of them were close friends, something the princess would have adamantly denied. "It's just as I've suspected recently. One by one, the gods are turning away from Ranke."