It took Quartisa few days to locate Essa and the others. While he had a general idea of the location, it wasn’t like the Eldest Elder wanted to be found.
He passed the guards on watch, and then headed toward the main tent where they had gathered for the evening meal.
He pushed through the flap, and the laughter and music stopped.
“Quartis,” Essa called from his elevated seat on the wooden platform. “What news?”
Quartis stood before him, bowed, and then started talking. There was much to tell, and halfway through someone pushed a mug of kavage into his hand.
At the end, Essa shook his head, and gestured for Quartis to sit next to him on the platform. “Eat,” he said.
Quartis balanced his mug with a platter of fried gurtle meat and flat bread. The red flakes were thick, just the way he liked it. The spicy scent made his mouth water.
“Eldest Elder,” Para stood. “What will we do?”
Essa shrugged. “Summer comes. It is the Season of War. Many of the Warlords have gone off to loot, to plunder, and raid, for the benefit of the Plains and the Tribes, as they do every summer. It is the way of our people. It is in our blood.”
Quartis hurried to swallow. “Singers too,” he said.
“Singers too,” Essa said. “But this season, the warriors with Keir and Antas will sit idle in the heat, waiting for a confrontation that will not come for perhaps months. Maybe at the Fall Council, maybe at the borders of Xy itself.” Essa regarded the room. “Regardless they will gather at the Heart whoever prevails, and we will be waiting.”
“So, we will do as we have always done. What do we normally do in this season? We gather. We sing, exchange news, and talk. But unlike other seasons of war, in this season we will not join the armies. We will scatter into the grasses, to stay safe and low until—” he broke off as one of the guards entered the tent, clearly agitated. “What is it?”
“Eldest Elder, the tent of the Ancients has appeared.”
Quartis could feel the loathing rolling off of the Eldest Elder Singer as Essa rose to his feet. He pitied the man, even as he took another bite. To have to face those—
“Quartis,” Essa commanded. “Come with me.”
Quartis scrambled to his feet, swallowing and wiping his hands on his trous. He followed Essa out of the tent, and they both stood looking at a far rise where a tent stood alone against the horizon.
Essa swore under his breath, and started walking through the tall grass. Quartis followed.
It had been years since his Trial as a Singer. Quartis only had a vague memory of the Ancients when they had blessed him. The tent was as dark and hot as he remembered, and the three old figures wrapped in blankets had not changed.
Essa marched up to stand in front of them, and glared. “What?” he demanded. “It’s not enough you have cost me a fine, potential—”
“Where is Joden of the Hawk?” Came a thin, quavering voice.
Essa gaped at them. “You don’t know?” he asked.
The Ancients stared at him with three sets of glittering eyes. Quartis felt the very air grow thick and oppressive.
“Youdon’tknow,” Essa breathed.
The silence was deafening. Quartis’s heart pounded in his ears.
Essa folded his arms over his chest. “When we opened the grave, Joden was gone.”
“Dead?” this voice was a cackle. Wavering and uncertain to Quartis’s ears.
“We’d know,” a third voice said. “We’d know if he were—”
“Silence,” whispered the last voice.
“You are supposedly all powerful, all knowing,” Essa demanded. “And yet you—”
“Be gone,” the voices chorused, and with that Quartis found himself outside the tent, Essa at his side. Before he could even turn, he knew the tent was gone.
