Shadows of Aggar (Amazons of Aggar) Read online

  Shadows of Aggar

  by Chris Anne Wolfe

  Orchard House Press

  Port Orchard † Washington

  Shadows of Aggar

  copyright 1991 by Chris Anne Wolfe

  published by Orchard House Press

  ISBN 978-1-886383-30-2

  First edition November 1997

  Second edition November 2001

  Third edition April 2004

  Fourth edition October 2007

  First Kindle edition October 2010

  0 9 8 7 6 5

  Cover and interior design by Buster Blue of Blue Artisans

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, except in the case of short excerpts for use in reviews of the book.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  For information about film, reprint or other subsidiary rights, contact:

  [email protected]

  Orchard House Press is an independent press dedicated to publishing timeless books and games across all genres. The orchard and house logo is a trademark of Orchard House Press.

  Orchard House Press

  7419 Ebbert Drive Southeast

  Port Orchard, Washington 98367

  www.OrchardHousePress.com

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  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available.

  Dedication

  For M.A. and Laurel, who launched me from home with orders to “Fight Fiercely!”

  For Susan B. and Susan S. who kept encouraging.

  For Carrie who kept reassuring.

  For Elizabeth who kept asking for more

  and especially for Miz who helped make this all possible.

  Acknowledgments

  My special thanks for the aid of Merlin Stone’s Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood, published by Beacon Press (Boston, 1984), and the consolidation of reference materials the book provided.

  Julia Franklin’s assistance with the geological and geographical development of Aggar was invaluable.

  Lastly, my appreciation to my sister muse and publisher, Jennifer DiMarco, who is the heart of Orchard House Press.

  A Note from the Publisher

  Unlike readers all over the world, I came to know Blue-Sighted Elana and the Amazon Diana quite late. Shadows of Aggar was published and nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in 1991, but I didn’t pick up my copy until 1993 — the year I met Chris Anne while touring with my own science fiction tale. To say the least, I found Shadows of Aggar, with its eitteh flying-cats, powerful women and magic-and-mayhem adventure unforgettable.

  Before her death on July 2nd, 1997, Chris Anne — one of Orchard House Press’ first authors and a dear friend — had published four novels: Shadows of Aggar, Fires of Aggar, Annabel & I and Bitter Thorns (reprinted in 2000 as Roses & Thorns). Each novel is unique but all have one thing in common — they gave women the stories they longed for.

  Chris Anne’s gift was to reach into the hearts of women readers and find the words they most want for their own. Her books begin with timeless foundations, familiar plots and archetypal characters, but examined in a different light they reflect and reveal the lives, desires, and strengths of women every where.

  With Shadows of Aggar, Chris Anne recreated the classic warrior/mage adventure, and in Fires of Aggar she brought us a tale of culture clash and political intrigue through the eyes of two couples. Annabel & I has been likened to Somewhere in Time and Roses & Thorns retells the Beauty and the Beast myth — both books star two heroines. Chris Anne’s novels are what she gave back to the community she loved.

  In 2001 we released this beautiful new edition of Shadows of Aggar and a matching photo cover edition of Fires of Aggar. Annabel & I was also reissued with a romantic new cover. Perhaps most exciting however, was the entirely new book published in our Delimit Nonpareil series, Chris Anne’s autobiographical/fantasy, Death, Sweet Suitor Mine. This is a powerful and moving short piece, released in a full-color, limited edition. An anthology of short stories, Amazons of Aggar, some written by Chris Anne, others written by loyal readers, is in the works now.

  Because of Chris Anne’s clarity of vision, she resisted any changes to her work that might alter her intent — from shortening a scene to removing an ellipse. Luckily, the staff here at Orchard House Press understand the vital importance of an author’s input. It seemed only fitting that when Chris Anne’s previous publisher decided they no longer wanted to reprint the Aggar books, Chris Anne asked Orchard House Press to release author-approved editions. We were honored by the opportunity.

  As many of you already know, Chris Anne was diagnosed with cancer the same year Shadows of Aggar was initially published. Though her health did not always allow her to respond, all letters from readers were forwarded, and she assured us that they were read and treasured. Thank you for writing.

  Orchard House Press will continue to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Chris Anne’s books to cancer research. We will also insure that her work is never allowed to go out of print. Chris Anne’s gifts will always be there for new readers to discover and old friends to treasure.

  Sincerely,

  Jennifer DiMarco

  Orchard House Press

  Chief Executive Officer

  Shadows of Aggar

  by Chris Anne Wolfe

  Part One

  Dreams Yield, Awake!

  Chapter One

  The night was bright with thickly scattered stars and the first moon was nearly full. From the eastern peaks, white and crescent-like, the midnight moon came to join her sister and beneath their care the mountain stronghold slept.

  A breeze flitted down from the peaks above, dancing along the upper edges of one stony wall until it found a small, arched window with the shutters tied open. Slender strands of moonlight slipped in with the breeze and the dry, bitter chill in the dormitory room stirred.

  It was a long, stark room with rows of heavily framed beds and leather-hinged chests. Slumbering figures huddled beneath furred skins and woolen blankets, safe from the late autumn cold.

  The night breezes whispered again. The woman nearest the arching window stirred and wakened. Ice blue eyes, blurred by sleep, looked to a stone slated hearth. Flickering, dancing orange flames leapt high, and the subtle smell of smoke drifted to her nostrils. An insistent knock drew her drowsy attention to the door beside the hearth and to the torch-light that pushed through the ill-fitted planks. Urgency clenched her stomach and adrenaline surged through her blood.

  At the door the banging began again.

  What door? The icy clear eyes blinked as the woman remembered there was no door to the left of their fireplace. The vision began to swim, drifting into pieces, until the flames were swallowed by the empty cavern of the hearth. The wall stood dark now before her inquisitive gaze. She blinked again, and the remnants of the smoky smell were sent away, but the vision left a restlessness, a taunting lure of urgency, that would not leave.

  She should not be surprised. The haunting dreams had come all too often. Through warm summer eves and harsh winter darkness, the teasing glimpses of that unnamable person had followed her across more than two tenmoons. Now, the call strengthened, and nearly every night she found herself wakened.

  Several beds away someone shifted, then settled back into sleep and the woman realized that her Blue Gift would soon project her uneasiness to everyone in the room if she was not careful. She would have to leave or concentrate on containing herself. She was not prepared to do the latter; she needed to think. With a stern calm clamped across her restless feelings, she tossed back the thick covers.

 
; Her skin was pale in the moons’ light, and her small breasts grew hard in the coldness. Unmindful of the chilled stones underfoot, she hurried to her clothes chest. Soft tights of brown wool were donned, and an undyed linen tunic slipped over her head. A wooden comb tamed the length of her dark, curling hair and the strands about her face were caught and drawn back to be bound by a leather thong. The soft hide of the indoor shoes slipped on easily and the ankle laces were knotted.

  She noted the moonlight shimmering as it slid through the small window. The Twin Moons tempted her to use her gift more consciously and to send her Blue Sight soaring through that window in search of the one who so persistently wakened her with these murky, indecipherable dreams. She resisted the temptation, knowing it would be in vain. She was a Blue Sight, but she was not trained as a Seer. Her impatience grew. She snatched the light cloak from her chest and marched past the drapes hanging in the archway.

  The upper windows in the hall were open as usual, and beneath the moons’ light her cloak twirled, settling about her shoulders as she fastened it. The fabric was useless against a winter’s cold, but the snows were still many ten-days away. For now, it broke the occasional draft of the Keep’s passageways.

  She made her way through the maze of gray stone walls and tomb-like silence. Her stride was long and quick. Though she was tall for a woman of this planet, her tread was noiseless as she crossed the polished wood balcony above the hall. Then again the stone closed in around her. With a faint frown, she quickened her pace.

  Few of her world would call her an exceptionally pretty woman, her features were neither fashionably plump nor delicately chiseled. Except for her height and the striking, almost translucent blue of her eyes, she was typical of countless young women of her planet. And the unusual color of her eyes could easily be hidden from a stranger by a trick of the cloak and Sight, a special skill practiced by any who aspired to be a Shadow — and who was also gifted with the Blue Sight.

  The tension in her expression eased as her own feelings usurped the urgent beckoning of the dream. Her own anger and frustration she could manage, but emotions of dreamspun visions were quite another matter. In truth she was more annoyed by her inability to decipher the visions than upset by their constant appearance.

  It did not appease her to remind herself that confusion was often the price of the Blue Sight. The Gift that allowed her to glimpse the amarin — the flowing, hidden patterns of each life — often prevented her from understanding the reasons compelling such life into motion. It was as if she was so acutely aware of each glossy, green-barked tree that the edges of her mind could not define the forest as a whole.

  Still, after so many tenmoons of hauntings, she could have hoped for a breath more of understanding.

  Ahead the glow of fires and torches sent huge, wavering shadows against the walls, and suddenly she hesitated as the Grand Hall opened below. Dozens of the Keep’s scribes, traders and historians filled the Hall. Scattered among them stood the robed figures of both the Blue-Sighted Seers and the revered Council Masters. Kitchen pages darted about with hastily prepared platters of meats and day-old sweets. In the far hearth the mulled Wine of Decisions simmered and the herbal, fruity scent of the liquor made her nostrils flare. She wondered if the Wine’s touch had somehow called up her own blurred Sight while these Seers drank and sought visions.

  She hovered at the balcony above, searching the crowd for one robed figure in particular.

  “Here!” a voice snapped from behind. A woman, grown gray by countless tenmoons, closed a heavy door. Her black robe shifted as she adjusted its wide, rope belt with fingers gnarled by age. “It always amazes me that so few hear when your mind shouts like that,” the Old Mistress snorted. Then she relented some as she started down the steps. “What brings you from bed, Elana?”

  The younger woman glanced up quickly. Her full, given name… e-lah´-na… was rarely spoken here.

  “I have decided that you are growing too old for such childishness as Ona,” the Mistress continued. “You have been with us for nine of the tenmoon seasons. You are the Eldest Prepared.” A dry laugh came. “If you had stayed with your parents, you would already be married to a smithy and have borne three children.”

  “Two,” Elana corrected fondly. “My parents would have waited until I was of age at eight tenmoons.”

  A disbelieving humpf came from the elder. “Elana will be more fitting, use it.”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Why are you up?” she repeated, leading the way to an empty seat beside a smaller hearth. “Surely this did not waken you so far away in the dormitories?” A piercing gray eye suddenly examined the young face, “Unless you do not sleep these nights in your own bed?”

  Elana assured her mentor, “I am still in my bed — alone.”

  “Then?”

  “I was awakened….” Elana hesitated, wondering if her personal matters shouldn’t wait until the dealings of the Council were finished.

  “Vision-stirred,” the Mistress murmured knowingly. A boy pushed by with a tray, and she halted him to confiscate drink for both of them.

  Elana refused the food, and he left them as the old one sighed again. “Certainly you were touched,” she continued almost to herself. “Why am I always so amazed?” She smiled and patted the strong, smooth hand. “You are the oldest of our trainees now. You have a maturity matching the best of any we have chosen as Shadows. And you have the Blue Sight with a basic skill that surpasses most of the Seers’ apprentices. I would be more surprised if you were not disturbed by your Sight tonight.” She nodded toward the figures gathered at the far hearth. “I fear this crisis our Seers now speak of may involve more than the peoples of Aggar.”

  The elder’s amarin were strong, drawing Elana’s gaze to her face. Elana asked, “The off-worlders? How could aliens be threatened by us?”

  “Humans, child. Not aliens. These Terrans are as like us as our apprentices are like Council Masters.”

  A cynical smile turned Elana’s lips. “That is sometimes very little, no?”

  The Mistress chuckled appreciatively. “Sometimes.” Then more somberly she said, “We do not threaten the off-worlders. It seems they threaten themselves. But we of Aggar, I fear, are again being drawn in as pawns in their interstellar game.”

  As pawns? Or as the Mother’s own players? Elana’s heart pounded faster. Imagine a chance to turn the fates of whole planets! The magnitude of the idea enticed Elana’s very soul.

  But then her haunting vision surfaced again and she knew the off-worlders’ technology had not built the plank door she had seen. “The off-worlders’ games are not what I saw, Mistress.”

  A thin brow lifted skeptically. “What did you see?”

  “The same woman I have always spoken of.” Elana gazed down into her wine cup. A face appeared in the ruby depths of the liquid… the face of the woman she had seen in so many dreams. “Only I did not see her. I saw with her tonight. Through her eyes I saw a hearth. Through her body I moved to reach the door. I felt her need for haste.” The vision of the face dissolved in her wine, and she looked to the Mistress again.

  With a warm clasp she took Elana’s hand. “So, perhaps your destiny prepares to meet you? For you, this is more important than all the off-worlders’ politics.”

  “Such self-importance.” Elana laughed.

  “No,” the Old Mistress corrected her quietly, “it is neither selfishness nor pride. It merely is.”

  Elana absorbed the words slowly, and then with a nod, she accepted them.

  The elder turned to the murmuring crowd around them. “In the meanwhile, as Eldest of the Prepared you should stay for this. Even if you truly are not to play a part in their interstellar game, you may know of another trainee who should.”

  “Perhaps so,” Elana agreed as a shadow fell across them.

  “I’m glad you have deemed it fit to join us again, Mistress.” The Master bowed, but there was a glint of humor in his dark eyes. He pulled a stool n
earer the hearth and nodded to Elana. “It is good to see you here as well.”

  Elana returned her teacher’s nod, studying him with concern. He was tired. Lines were etched deeply around his eyes. His balding head drooped with fatigue.

  He and the Mistress shared the duties of instructing Elana and her peers in the Preparations; the lure of the challenge — the striving for the undoable was a desire he deliberately cultivated in all the trainees who sought to become a Shadow. But tonight, he merely looked old. Despite his beliefs and his commitment to his planet’s survival, he, like the Mistress, had seen too many challenges from Fates’ Jests. He clearly did not relish yet another one.

  “Have they learned more?” the Mistress prodded, nodding to the Seers that gathered about the far hearth where the Wine of Decisions brewed.

  “Some,” he admitted and straightened. “The man is indeed an off-worlder. His craft fell somewhere in the Maltar’s vast realm. Where he comes from exactly — why the crash…?” The Master shrugged. “The Seers’ visions do not say. But of the man himself, it becomes clearer. His name is Garrison. He is skilled as an engineer as well as a pilot. His craft crashed at darkfall this afternoon. He is alone. Some three tenmoons ago, it seems he was assigned to the Terran base, although he worked above on their refueling station. He never actually set foot to Aggar’s soil.”

  The Mistress spoke suddenly. “Do we know what sort of work the off-worlders were doing the season he was here? Perhaps he returned to complete something?”

  “The Master Historian has mentioned nothing, but the thought is intriguing. Perhaps we should send a runner to the vaults, the records should tell us.”