face and in its place was a joyful light. She was enormously pregnant. She and Mathinna spent a few happy days talking over old times. Shara seemed convinced that she would give birth soon, despite the fact that seven months was far too early. Mathinna wanted to examine her for Tari women did not give birth easily or safely, but Shara said the life spirit wished for things to follow their proper course. It was only when Shara told Mathinna she did not, under any circumstances, want her brother to raise her daughters that Mathinna had any inkling that Shara did not expect to survive.
When Shara's labour began, far too early, she finally allowed Mathinna to use magic to look into her heaving belly. To her horror Mathinna discovered not one but three children within. No Tari woman had ever given birth to triplets before. Mathinna could feel the life spirit blazing in them with a power she had never felt in any being before. It was as if they were twice as alive.
'The life spirit made the one into… three,' Shara said through her pain. 'It is to replace the gap… in the great circle that was left… when Garroway and the others were consumed. They asked me if I would undertake this task and… and I was glad to make some restitution… for Olbia.'
Mathinna could feel her heart faltering under the strain. 'Hold on,' she begged Shara, with tears in her eyes. 'You can make it through.'
'Don't be sad,' Shara gasped. 'The life spirit… has gifted our… daughters greatly. And I am… not sorry to… die.'
It was the last thing she ever said. By the time her family had arrived, poor Shara was dead and three baby girls wailed lustily in their moss-lined cots.
Three sisters.
Elena, Yanimena and Marigoth.
Chapter 1
Fleurforet
Twenty-four years later
Elena worked hard on the potion all afternoon. She mixed it over the fire and added herbs, heating and reheating it until at last she could feel a strong life spirit in it. Then she stopped. To do more would diminish it and weaken the potion's effectiveness against joint pain. Elena was not especially skilled at healing. She preferred to make things like boats and spears, but she had a special feeling for the life spirit which was useful in making such potions.
She took a long, luxurious stretch and looked around. She was surprised to find that it was almost dark. The light had turned velvety with evening, and people were gathered round their cooking fires. The Mori camp looked cosy. Skin tents were clustered around the tall, thin, finger-like tower of Fleurforet. A group of pipers practiced somewhere on the other side of the camp. Young people of courting age were dressed up in their festival finery and strolling with studied casualness around the base of the tower. Children played a chasing game between the tents. Elena's daughter, Alyx, was running among them.
Elena inhaled the scent of wood smoke and the delicious scent of mangiri trees with a happy sigh. The trees' scent was the scent of home. She had lived with the Mori for seven years. Of her own people, the Tari, she knew little. She did not even remember the holy land of Ermora where she had been born. She had grown up on an isolated island with only her foster parents and two sisters for company. Always she remembered her grandmother's warning that if the Tari found her they would harm her. There was some prophecy involved, but her grandmother had disappeared before she had told them more. Once Elena had been curious about the Tari and had chafed against hiding. Now she did not care. She was happy here. This forest, singing with the life spirit, was her home. These were her people.
The nomadic Mori roamed in small family groups throughout the large forest on the eastern side of the island of Yarmar. They worshiped Labwa, the lord of the forest, and tried to live in harmony with the life spirit. Consequently, the watchtower of Fleurforet was the only permanent building found in their territory. Four times a year they gathered here to meet with each other and to allow their queen to mediate disputes. The shamans, who possessed magical vision, would climb the tower and watch the sea for the merchants who came to the nearby river estuary to trade with the Mori.
When the merchants came, guides would lead them to the Mori camp. The place was hidden by strong magic, and any non-Mori venturing alone into the forest nearby quickly found themself lost.
Elena was just wondering how the afternoon's trading had gone when a pair of arms snaked round her waist and squeezed. She spun around, laughing with delight.
'How do you do that?' she cried, embracing the dark-haired man behind her. 'I never hear you coming.'
'A hunter must take extra care when stalking clever prey,' Eldene said lightly before he kissed her. Eldene often told her how clever she was. She loved his rare and generous spirit. Elena had been veiled when they had met and they came to love each other without him ever seeing her face.
Elena sensed he was troubled. Over seven years of marriage she had become good at reading his moods.
'What is it, my lord?' She guessed at the cause. 'Did the merchant have bad news? Will he not be able to bring the arrowheads?'
Eldene's eyes twinkled. 'Tree and leaf. Now, be honest with me. You read my mind, don't you? It's Tari magic, isn't it?'
Elena laughed. 'Oh, wouldn't you like to know, my lord and master! But don't change the subject. What did the merchant say?'
'He said the Mirayans were stopping and searching ships. I do not understand the Mirayans. They seem to have some idea that they have the right to do these things. Where do they get this idea?'
'They are so strong.'
'Aye. I know. They simply do it because they can. But it is so hard to understand how they justify it.'
Elena hugged him. It was puzzling. How was the life spirit served by this will to dominate? But there were more important matters to consider at the moment.
'So, the arrowheads? Did the merchant refuse?'
'The merchant will bring them. He will even bring them more cheaply this year. He has a grudge against the Mirayans. All the Danians do now. Now, do not be frightened. It seems the Mirayans were behind the attempt to kill their queen.'
Elena gasped. 'Yani!' Her sister Yani was one of the Danian queen's bodyguards.
'Your sister is safe. She's a hero, in fact. Her quick blow killed the assassin and saved the queen's life.'
'She killed? Oh, poor Yani!'
'Poor Yani?' Eldene was surprised. Few outlanders really understood how violence affected the Tari.
'To kill is the greatest crime against the life spirit. It brings the deepest agony to the Tari. I must send her some comfort. What else did the merchant say?'
'He says it is likely that Duke Wolf will break our treaty. He has been gathering his troops in Lamartaine. You were right. Do these people care nothing for balance?' It was a rhetorical question. Everyone in the Archipelago knew that the Mirayans were only interested in the kind of balance that stemmed from their mastery.
Elena and Eldene held each other in silence.
When they had first come to the Archipelago, eighty years before, the Mirayans had simply been traders. But as time went on they began to take control over the ports they traded from. More recently, a civil war in their homeland had bought them to the Archipelago in greater numbers and with a view to settling on the land.
Twenty-three years ago a group of Mirayan mercenaries had sailed into the harbor at Olbia and offered to help the Southern Seagani clear up the chaos left by Demonmaster Asgor's destruction of Olbia. Peace and security had been established but the Southern Seagani had found themselves compelled to offer their Chieftainship to the Mirayan leader Alexus Scarvan, who soon pronounced himself High Chief of all the Seagani. After a series of battles the other Seagani tribes learned to accept his overlordship. One of High Chief Scarvan's vassals, Duke Wolf Madraga, now ruled the Eastern Seagani from his fortress at Lamartaine. This meant his lands bordered on the lands of the Mori. He seemed to be busy perpetuating the old tensions between the Mori and the Eastern Seagani for purposes of his own.
The