The Outcast

by Louise Cooper

  The fortune-teller had done, and the young man was getting up to leave. Coins changed hands, thanks were given and obsequious bows received in exchange; then the boothman dodged behind his curtain and out of sight.

  The young man was about to pass by Cyllan’s bench, and she knew suddenly that she couldn’t keep silent.

  Little good it might do her, but her sense of justice rebelled at the thought of letting such chicanery go unremarked. As the young man reached her she stood up.

  ‘Excuse me, sir … ‘

  He started, turned, then frowned, clearly unused to being so directly addressed by a low-class stranger.

  Anxious that he shouldn’t think she was importuning him, Cyllan spoke quickly and softly.

  ‘The fortune-teller is a charlatan, sir. I thought you should know.’

  He was surprised. A fresh, smooth face, she thought; he’d never known hardship, never wanted for anything - and probably that explained his naivety in the face of the seer’s blandishments. Now, collecting himself, he strolled closer to where she sat.

  ‘A charlatan?’ His smile was faintly patronising.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  Obviously he suspected her of harbouring some personal motive for attempting to discredit the man. Cyllan met his gaze steadily. ‘I was born and brought up in the Great Eastern Flatlands. Reading the stones is an ancient skill there … and therefore I know a faker when I see one.’

  The young man clasped his hands together and stared thoughtfully at an expensive ring on one finger. ‘He is a stranger to Shu-Nhadek - as, it seems, are you - and yet he divined a good deal about my position. Doesn’t that speak in his favour?’

  Cyllan decided to gamble that her flash of clairvoyance had been accurate, and smiled. ‘It takes small seer’s skills, sir, to recognise and acknowledge the son and heir to the Margrave of Shu Province.’

  She had been right … he raised his eyebrows and stared at her with a newly dawning interest. ‘You are a seer?’

  ‘A stone-reader, and of small talent,’ Cyllan said, ignoring the insult - no doubt unintentional - that his surprise implied. ‘I don’t ply my skill, nor do I seek to profit from it; I’m not trying to steal the boothman’s trade. But it offends me to see tricksters preying on innocent victims.’

  The idea that he was one such innocent victim clearly didn’t appeal to the Margrave’s son and for a moment she wondered if she had been too blunt, and affronted him. But after a brief hesitation he nodded curtly.

  ‘Then I’m indebted to you. I’ll have the charlatan run out of the province before the day’s over!’ His eyes narrowed suddenly and he studied her face more closely. ‘And if you are what you say you are, I shall be interested to see if you can succeed where the charlatan failed!’

  He wanted her to read the stones for him, and Cyllan was alarmed. Her uncle, who like most of his peers was deeply superstitious and regarded psychic talents as the rightful province only of the privileged - and officially sanctioned - few, would kill her if he ever found out that she had been using her skills. And to read for the son of the Province Margrave … she couldn’t do it - she didn’t dare.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said indistinctly, ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Can’t?’ He was suddenly angry. ‘What d’you mean, can’t? You say you’re a seer - I ask you to prove it!’

  ‘I mean, sir, that I daren’t.’ She could do nothing other than be honest. ‘I’m apprenticed to my uncle, and he disapproves strongly of such things. If he were ever to find out - ‘

  ‘What is your uncle’s name?’

  ‘He is - ‘ She looked at the young man’s face, swallowed. ‘Kand Brialen. A drover.’

  ‘A drover who doesn’t exploit a profitable enterprise right under his nose? I find that hard to believe!’

  ‘Please!’ Cyllan entreated him anxiously. ‘If he were ever to know -’

  ‘Oh, by the gods I’ve got better things to do with my time than run tattling tales to peasants!’ the young man retorted petulantly. ‘And if you won’t read for me, you won’t But I’ll remember the name. Kand Brialen - I’ll remember it!’ And before Cyllan could say anything more, he turned on his heel and walked away.

  Slowly, she sat down again. Her heart was thumping and she wished that she hadn’t been so foolhardy as to interfere. Now, if the whim took him, the Margrave’s son might find some excuse to seek out her uncle and, if he was sufficiently offended by her refusal, let slip enough about their encounter to ensure that she’d suffer for it. He wasn’t used to having his wishes thwarted; he was obviously spoilt and might choose to be spiteful.

  And if—

  She checked the train of thought suddenly, and sighed. Whatever the Margrave’s son did or did not do, she couldn’t change matters. She had survived Kand Brialen’s rage before now, and could survive it again.

  Best to finish her beer, return and face whatever had to be faced.

  The tavern potboy emerged to take her mug and ask if she’d like more. Cyllan shook her head and reluctantly rose from the bench, heading away towards the side of the market place where the crowds began to thin out.

  Here, stalls and booths gave way to the thatch-roofed livestock pens, where herds of dull-eyed animals milled and complained and awaited their fate. Kand Brialen and his drovers had pitched their tents to one side of the largest pen, and throughout the day trade had been brisk; they had a hundred cattle, driven in from Han, to sell, together with four good work-horses which Kand had bought for a disgracefully low sum after a good deal of barter in Prospect. And with Spring and the breeding season almost m sight they were fetching good prices.

  Cyllan had long ago learned not to think too often about her own future with Kand Brialen and his drovers.

  Four years ago, when her mother - Kand’s sister - and father had been lost with their fishing boat in the treacherous Whiteshoals Sound, her uncle had taken on responsibility for her, but from the beginning he’d made no effort to disguise his resentment of the duty. As far as he was concerned Cyllan was an unwanted liability; he had no use for women other than the occasional whore when the mood took him, and had made it clear that if his orphaned niece expected him to provide for her, she must repay him by working as hard as any of the men in his band. And so for four years Cyllan had dressed like a drover, worked like a drover and coped, too, with all the ‘women’s work’ demanded of her. Admittedly, she had also travelled widely and seen a good deal of the world; something unheard offer any girl in the Eastern Flatlands.

  But it was a life that gave her little to look forward to.

  Back at home - although it was becoming harder every season to think of anywhere as home - she would doubtless by now have been matched with the second or third son of another local fishing family in a pragmatic clan alliance. Hardly a great achievement, but it would have been better, surely, than this harsh nomadic existence. As it was, her future stretched endlessly ahead; work, travel, sleep when she could snatch it, until the Northern winds and Southern Sun withered her before her time …

  She shook the unhappy thought off as she glimpsed her uncle’s burly figure moving among the lines of horses tethered near the pens. He was accompanied by a tall and slightly stooping middle-aged man who, to judge from his furtrimmed coat and Kand’s obsequiousness, was a wealthy potential customer. Cyllan tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible as she headed towards their pitch, anxious not to disturb her uncle while he was trading. She had almost reached the tents when a voice spoke softly but with satisfaction behind her.

  ‘Ah - so there you are!’

  Startled, she turned to find herself facing the Margrave’s son. He was grinning conspiratorially, and gestured in the direction of the two men.

  ‘Kand Brialen -I remembered. And when I saw that he had good livestock for sale, I insisted that my father should see for himself!’

  So that was the Margrave of Shu … Cyllan realised suddenly that she was staring like a Moonstruck yokel, and hastily looked away.


  ‘You and I,’ the Margrave’s son said, ‘have some unfinished business. And I think my father and your uncle will be quite a time in making their bargain, so your secret’s safe enough. Come with me!’

  He was obviously not about to be argued with, so Cyllan made no attempt to protest as he took her arm and hurried her away from the pens. They entered a narrow street which led off the market square to the harbour, and the young man indicated an ill-kept building with a sign over the door depicting a crudely painted white ship on an unnaturally blue sea.

  ‘The White Barque Tavern, he said as he led the way through into the dark interior. ‘It’s used by sailors and traders, mostly - we’re unlikely to be seen by anyone who might know me.’

  Cyllan wryly shrugged aside the implied insult - after all, he was in his terms lowering himself by appearing publicly in her company - and tried to assess her first impressions of her companion. She had noted an almost feverish look in his eyes when he demanded that she should read her stones for him, and his determination to get his own way said far more about his personality than any words. She had met such people before; those who, preoccupied with the occult, defied the conventions which barred the subject to all but the Circle and the Sisterhood of Aeoris, and all too often their fascination bordered on obsession. Cyllan had recognised the trait immediately in the Margrave’s son, and was wary of it; it was a tendency that could, if she wasn’t careful, lead her into trouble.

  But otherwise, the young man seemed unremarkable enough. He had the typical good looks of a Shu Province native; abundant warm brown hair which curled about his head in the short style currently fashionable in the South, fine skin with an olive tinge that disguised a tendency to floridity, and expressive dark eyes with unusually long lashes. He was quite tall for a Southerner, and although in later years he would probably run to fat, there was no sign of it as yet.

  Now he pulled out a stool at an empty table in the corner of the tavern, and snapped his fingers to attract a potboy. Cyllan slid silently into the seat opposite and waited while he ordered wine for them both, and a slice of beef on black bread for himself. He didn’t ask if Cyllan was hungry. The wine and food were brought and unceremoniously dumped on the table; the potboy gave the well-to-do customer a withering look as he stalked away.

  ‘Now,’ said the Margrave’s son, ‘let’s deal with first things first. Tell me your name.’

  ‘Cyllan Anassan. Apprentice drover, from Kennet Head on the Great Eastern Flatlands.’ She introduced herself in the customary formal way by placing her hand palm down on the table.

  He laid his over it, but very briefly. ‘Drachea Rannak.

  Heir Margrave of Shu Province, from Shu-Nhadek.’

  And leaning back, he added. ‘So tell me, Cyllan Anassan, what brings you to be a drover, of all the unlikely occupations for a female?’

  Her story was brief and dreary; she told it in as few words as possible, and he regarded her with curious interest.

  ‘And yet you’re a seer? I’d have thought the Sisterhood would have been of more interest to you than droving.’

  She smiled thinly. In his world, a girl who wanted to join the Sisterhood of Aeoris merely said so and it was done, and she doubted if he could envisage matters any other way.

  ‘Let’s just say that the - opportunity - eluded me,’ she replied. ‘Besides, I doubt if I’m what the Sisters would call a seer.’

  Drachea pushed the slab of black bread around his plate with distaste. ‘Maybe so - but you should have pursued it.’ He looked up. ‘As a matter of fact, were it not for my position here in Shu I might well have thought along similar lines and presented myself as a candidate for the Circle.’

  ‘The Circle … ?’ Her response was immediate and her eyes narrowed. Drachea shrugged carelessly. ‘As it is, of course, such a thing isn’t possible unless I were to stand down in favour of my younger brother, and there’d be all manner of complications.’ He paused, then: ‘You’ve obviously travelled a great deal. Have you ever seen the Star Peninsula?’

  Cyllan was beginning to understand what lay behind his fascination with arcane matters. ‘Yes,’ she told him.

  ‘We were there last Summer, when the new High Initiate was inaugurated.’

  ‘You were?’ Drachea leaned forward, his condescension abruptly forgotten. ‘And did you see Keridil Toln in person?’

  ‘From a distance only. He came out of the Castle to speak and give Aeoris’s blessing to the crowd.’

  ‘Gods!’ Drachea took a mouthful of wine, hardly noticing what he was doing. ‘And to think that I missed such an event! My parents made the journey, of course, but I was ill with a fever and had to remain at home.’ He licked his lips. ‘So you saw it all … and did you cross the causeway to the Castle itself?’

  ‘Yes … for a short while.’

  ‘Aeoris!’ Drachea made a sign before his heart to show that he meant no disrespect to the highest of the gods. ‘It must have been the experience of a lifetime!

  And what of the Initiates themselves? Doubtless you saw some of them - but I don’t imagine you actually met any one of their number, did you?’

  Cyllan’s suspicions were at last confirmed. Drachea’s one burning ambition was to join the ranks of the Circle, so that he could satisfy his craving and learn the truth behind the secrets which obsessed him. And she knew, too, why he was so determined that she should read his future. He wanted to believe that his ambition would be fulfilled, and her word as a seer would be enough to fuel the fire inside him.

  ‘Cyllan!’ She was startled as he grasped her arm and shook it. ‘Listen to me! I said, did you meet any of the Initiates?’

  A discomforting juxtaposition of images flickered through Cyllan’s mind as she stared back. Drachea’s face, young, untrammelled, filled with a sense of his own importance; and another face, gaunt, self-contained, the eyes betraying knowledge and emotions far beyond physical years …

  She said huskily, ‘I met one man … a high Adept.’

  Then the Adepts don’t keep themselves to themselves? I’d heard - ah, but rumours grow like weeds! I must go there and see for myself. I would have done long since, but it needs so much time!’ He clenched his fists together in frustration, then abruptly his expression changed. ‘Have you been back to the Peninsula since those celebrations?’

  ‘No. We spent a month in Empty Province and since then have been making our way South.’

  ‘Then you won’t know the truth or otherwise of these newest rumours that are being whispered.’

  ‘New rumours?’ Cyllan was alert. ‘I’ve heard nothing.’

  ‘No … I doubt you would have. They began in West High Land and Chaun, and now they’re spreading here as well. No one seems to know the facts, but they say,’

  and Drachea paused for emphasis, ‘that there’s something wrong at the Castle. No word has been received from anyone there for some while now, and no one knows anyone who has visited the Castle from outside since last Moon-conjunction.’

  A peculiar sensation clutched at the pit of Cyllan’s stomach. She couldn’t explain the feeling or put a name to it; it was as if deep down within her some dormant, animal sense was stirring. Keeping a tight rein on herself she said again, ‘I’ve heard nothing. What do people say might be amiss?’

  ‘That’s just it - no one knows. There was a tale from West High Land recently about some dangerous wrongdoer apprehended at the Sisterhood Cot there, and there’s talk of a connection with events at the Castle, but beyond that everything’s speculation. It seems that the Initiates have decided to shut themselves off altogether from the rest of the world, but no one knows why.’ He clasped his hands together and frowned at them. ‘I’ve been looking for clues and omens, but can see nothing that makes any sense. The only strange thing to have happened here is an unusual number of Warps.’

  Cyllan shivered involuntarily at his mention of the word Warp. Every man, woman and child in the entire land was justly terrified of the weird supernatural storms that came wa
iling out of the North at unpredictable intervals. No one had ever dared to face the pulsating skies and demonic, shrieking voices of a Warp out in the open - the brave or crazed few who had ever done so had vanished without trace. Not even the wisest scholars knew where the Warps came from or what drove them; legend had it they were the last legacy of the forces of Chaos, left behind when the followers of Aeoris swept the Old Ones to destruction and restored the rule of Order.

  But whatever the power behind the Warps might be - and it was something that sensible folk preferred not to dwell on - Drachea was right when he said that the incidence of Warps had been increasing of late. Only five days ago, crossing the fertile plains that divided Shu Province from Prospect, Kand Brialen’s band had heard the most dreaded sound in the entire world - the thin, high wailing far away Northward that heralded the approach of the storm. Cyllan had had nightmares since then of the full-pelt ride to the nearest storm-haven - one of the long, narrow sheds that had been built for the safety of travellers along all the main drove roads, and of the seemingly endless torment inside that precarious shelter, lying with her face buried in her coat, blocking her ears against the howling chaos outside while the terrified livestock milled and bawled around her. It had been the third such experience since they left Empty Province …

  Even Drachea’s easy composure had been shaken by the topic, and, aware that the atmosphere was growing uncomfortable, he gestured to the flagon that stood between them on the table.

  ‘You haven’t touched your wine.’

  ‘Oh … oh, yes; thank you.’ Cyllan wasn’t concentrating; she had shaken off the ugly recollection, but a disturbance still remained. The animal instinct was nagging at her again …

  ‘As for this mystery at the Castle,’ Drachea continued, ‘it’s my belief that the Initiates have their own reasons which others might do well not to question. Although if, when you read your stones, you should see an omen there that might tell us something … ?’ He looked at her hopefully, and she shook her head with some vehemence.