“Enough? Not enough?” Father replied.
Soren looked over the priest’s head at her before agreeing to anything. “Ran, this involves you and matters you may not want someone else to see. ’Tis your decision.”
Father Ander faced her now, his face serious and solemn. “If Soren has not told you, my special gift is ancient and archaic languages, so you might find me helpful. But what he does not know is that a few weeks ago, something strange happened to me. I awoke one night from a terrible dream to find my arm on fire. Or so I thought.” The priest began to roll up his sleeve. “My arm was not on fire but the skin was burning. A mark appeared. . . .”
He tugged the wide sleeve up higher. Ran held her breath then. Did he . . . ? Could he . . . ?
“When Soren approached with his request for my help, it flared once more, becoming deeper and darker,” he explained, gazing at her and then Soren, who stood now like stone. “As I held the parchment he shared with me, I knew it was part of the answer to my questions about what this mark is and what it means.” Ander walked across the chamber that now felt so small to her. Standing before her, he lifted his arm higher.
There it was! His mark was that of a small sticklike figure of a man. And like theirs, it undulated as if alive. “Just now, as I entered and faced you, it burned again. Now, it moves like one alive. So, Ran, Soren, do either of you know what this means and why I have it?”
If Soren’s reaction was a mirror of her own, her mouth would be hanging open in disbelief and shock at the sight. How could this priest be involved in something that was as ungodly an endeavor as there ever was? The three stood in this triangle for several heavy, silent seconds until Soren moved first, removing another packet from within his tunic and opening it before them on the floor.
Not the map she’d seen but some new piece, another drawing but this time only symbols.
“My grandfather drew this, too, Ander,” he explained as they all moved closer and knelt around the parchment. “These symbols match mine”—Soren lifted his own sleeve to show the priest— “and Ran’s.” Soren nodded at her and she revealed her mark.
“The sea and the winds,” Ander whispered. “As in the story. Can you truly rouse them?” The priest laughed aloud then, almost as an excited child would when discovering something wondrous.
“Aye,” they answered as one. What would his reaction be to seeing her become the sea? Ran’s gaze took in the other symbols.
“So there are four others?” she asked. She picked up the story translation and read it again.
If called upon, those Warriors of the Stone Circles can rouse the winds and sea and earth and war and sun and beasts to their cause. Fire will serve both sides and will choose good or evil to triumph at the end.
“If we are the winds and sea, then earth, war, sun and fire are out there somewhere?”
“Two firebloods?” Soren asked, pointing to the last of the words. “Fire will serve both sides. The man you saw—he said he was fire?”
“You have met another? Who is it?” Father Ander asked.
“The man who holds my father against his will, Father. He said he is fire.”
“You saw him?”
“Aye,” she nodded. “But he did not see me for I remained part of the sea.”
The priest’s eyes widened again and she could see he had more questions. Instead he turned his attention back to the drawing.
“There! There is the symbol I have. Outside the circle and along the edge. And there in it, near that hole.”
A number of those stick figures lined the edges of the drawing. Ran reached out her hand toward the drawing. Soren took her hand.
“Have a care. When I touched it before . . .” He shuddered. “This is more than a drawing, I think.”
Before he could be stopped, Father Ander touched the place in the center that had been completely blackened in. His body jerked and went still. His eyes rolled up into his head and he fell backward. She’d seen someone have a fit like this once—they rolled on the ground and frothed at the mouth.
Ran moved quickly behind his head and held him steady on her lap, so he would not hurt himself on the floor. Soren folded the map up and put it aside, careful not to touch the center of it.
“Ander,” he said. “Ander.” The priest did not respond.
“Father,” she said directly into his ear. Touching his cheek and then tapping it, Ran repeated his name a few more times.
Mayhap a cold cloth or a sip of water would help him? Looking around the empty chamber, she wondered if . . .
Ran looked at Soren and then placed her hand on the priest’s forehead. Thinking of cold, clear water, she watched as her hand became that. Water dripped over his head and his cheek as she touched him there. Then, holding her hand higher, she let some drops trickle into his mouth.
Father Ander began to rouse. His eyes fluttered open and met hers just before he saw her hand. She changed it back to flesh and dropped it to her side. Soren reached out and helped his friend to sit. The priest shook his head and then shivered.
