by Glenda Larke
‘Yes, from the Second Stability,’ the woman said with an anguished sigh that came from somewhere deep inside her.
Keris was immediately sympathetic. ‘A bad crossing?’
‘Terrible. There were two who were tainted—two! And six separate ley lines to cross, four of them uncharted. The guide said he hadn’t had such a trip in years…’
‘My wife doesn’t want to go back,’ the man said bleakly.
‘The guide’ll have new maps by the time you are due to return, and you’re unlikely to be tainted on a return journey anyway,’ Keris said. ‘It usually happens the first time you cross a ley line, or not at all.’
‘That’s what they say,’ the woman said. ‘But I’ve heard it can happen.’
‘It can. But rarely.’
‘I don’t want to go back. And it doesn’t matter if we don’t, does it? I mean, the pilgrimage is still valid, isn’t it?’
‘Now Cosey,’ the man said with patronising patience, ‘you know you’d be hankering after your Ma and sister within a few weeks. We got to go back.’ He turned to Keris. ‘We need a map of Drumlin City, maid.’
Keris indicated a map pinned to the wall behind her. ‘We have ones like that. They show all the hostelries for pilgrims, and all the holy sites you’re supposed to visit within the city. And we have this one too.’ She spread out another chart on the counter. ‘This one is of the whole of the First Stab, showing the most convenient route from shrine to shrine. See? They are numbered, and the paths are marked. The obligatory shrines are shown in red; the minor ones in blue. The names are written beside them.’
Cosey looked at it doubtfully. ‘I dunno that we can understand maps. We’re just farming folk—’ Her husband gave an embarrassed nod of agreement.
‘There’s nothing to it really,’ Keris said. ‘Imagine you’re a bird, flying up in the air, and you’re looking down on the ground. Well, this is what it would look like. Everything tiny, looking a bit odd because you’re looking at it from above. See here, that’s a wood, and this is a road. And there you have a village. See the houses? And here’s a stream—’
‘Oh—! And look, Jax, there’s a water mill!’
‘That’s right. So if you were on this path and wanted to go to this shrine here, you would turn right at the crossroads where the water mill is.’
‘Why, that’s easy! Jax, do you see? If we had a map, we really don’t have to pay a guide.’
‘It’s certainly cheaper,’ Keris agreed. ‘And you can always ask the way as well, once you have studied the map and decided where you want to go.’
‘How much is it?’ Jax asked.
‘A silver for a vellum one. A parchment one is cheaper, only half a silver. But then you really need a leather map case for it, and that costs twenty coppers.’
‘A silver doesn’t sound much for a chart,’ Cosey said, surprised. ‘I thought maps were expensive. We were wondering if maybe a guide would be cheaper.’
‘Charts of the Unstable are expensive. Mapmakers like my father risk their lives six months in every year to map the Unstable. But these stability maps hardly need much updating because of the Rule. Look, if you’d like some advice, I’ll tell you what I think. Don’t go direct to Drumlin. Go to Kte Marlede’s Shrine first. That’s just about an hour’s walk off the main road, and you turn off just forty minutes or so from Kibbleberry.’ Keris pointed to the shrine on the map. ‘Here, see? It’s an obligatory one. There’s a chantist hostelry there if you want it, or you can camp in the field for a small fee. It’s where the Knighte begged forgiveness from the Maker for her previous disbelief. She wasn’t a sworn Knighte of Chantry then of course. You can still see the melted rocks where the Maker sent down His warning… It’s a beautiful place with a river, just the place to rest after your journey, to make your peace with the Maker for your past sins. What better way to start a pilgrimage?’
Cosey sighed. ‘It sounds lovely. I’m so tired.’
‘Drumlin, on the other hand, is a day and a half’s ride from Kibbleberry,’ Keris added. ‘If you go to Kte Marlede’s instead, then you can go on to the second obligatory shrine, here. That’s Kt Gallico’s. And then the third here. After that, you have to decide whether to take this route here—’ her finger traced a pathway across the map ‘—which takes in five minor shrines, all in Taggart’s Wood, or stay on the main route to Kte Felmina’s. The deviation rejoins the main path here. There are several other detours like that further on. Eventually you will arrive in Drumlin from the north. It’s the route most pilgrims take.’
Cosey turned to her husband. ‘Jax, let’s do that.’
He squared his shoulders. ‘All right. We’ll take this map. I dunno about the other, though.’
Keris smiled. ‘Look, I shouldn’t say this, but you’ll be able to buy a used one in the city for a few coppers from a pilgrim about to return to his or her own stability. You may even be able to sell this one just before you leave, although that may be more difficult because most people will already have bought it here on their way into the stab.’
The man began to look happier. ‘That’s a good idea.’ He dug into the pouch around his neck and produced a silver.
Keris rolled up the map and fastened it with its attached ribbon. ‘There you go. May the peace of Creation be yours on your journey.’ She signed a kinesis of farewell.
‘Thank you,’ Cosey said, as her hands fluttered the reply. ‘You are nice—I feel better about being on pilgrimage already.’
She watched them from the doorway while they remounted and rode away, then turned to pick up the coin from the counter. She hesitated a moment, then slipped the silver into her apron pocket.
From the next room a weak voice asked, ‘Have they gone?’
‘Yes, Mama, they’ve gone.’ She went into the main room of the house, the kitchen, where her mother was lying on a bed under the window, well wrapped in spite of the day’s warmth. Only her face, tired and pale, and her thin white hands moving restlessly on the much-patched cover, were visible.
‘Your father would say you threw away the sale of the second map.’
She nodded, unrepentant. ‘They were farming people without much money. We don’t need their silver.’ She made an impatient gesture with one hand. ‘Riding their plough horses, poor souls. They won’t get their knees together for a year once they’ve got home. And—obedient to the Rule—the wife has already changed back into a skirt which can’t be comfortable to wear while riding such a beast.’
‘Now, Keris—’
She didn’t let her mother finish. ‘It’s nonsense that they’re here anyway, risking their lives crossing the Unstable. For what?’
‘For the good of their souls, dear.’
‘But why should it be good for their souls? What’s the matter with devotions at shrines in their own stability? Why should we all have to make this truly ridiculous journey once in our lifetimes, or risk dying unhallowed and destined for the Hell of Disorder no matter how knightly a life we’ve led? The whole thing is just a way Chantry has of fleecing the population!’
‘Nonsense, dear, and you know it. They could fleece us quite adequately at our local shrines if need be. We do this because the Maker requires it of us, to show that at least once in our lives we put Him first before our personal desires and indeed before our personal safety.’
‘Is He so…so petty? It’s not right, Mother. People die out there in the Unstable. Or are terribly tainted and then excluded, unable to ever return. Is that fair?’
Her mother’s expression was that of someone who had heard it all before from the same source, and often. She said quietly, ‘Those who die are received directly into Heaven’s Order. You would be more tolerant of your faith and the Rule if you were older and closer to death, child.’
She winced. The words struck too close to home. Her mother’s illness was worsening as the strange lump that grew inside Sheyli Kaylen sucked her life away while it swelled and groped its way through her body. She was fra
il now. Even her hair, once luxuriantly abundant, seemed as fragile as the delicate lacework woven on to the neck of her nightdress. An illegal frippery that, but it showed Sheyli had once been a woman of spirit prepared to defy the Rule, even if she did keep the rebellion hidden on her nightwear. Keris said with unaccustomed gentleness, ‘Father will be home soon. Perhaps even today.’
‘Perhaps. But Keris, you heard what that Cosey woman just said: four uncharted ley lines on their route. Your father will have had much to do. Did you put their silver in the till?’
Keris shook her head and took the money out of her pocket. ‘For Thirl to drink or gamble away? No. This will buy you some more sleeping medicine for a start, and still leave more than enough to pay what we owe to Master Ferit for the yams and onions he bought us at the Daltoner Market last week. Thirl needn’t know about it.’
Her mother sighed. ‘I don’t—’ she began, but whatever she was going to say was obliterated by the sudden desperate howling of a cat.
‘Yerrie?’ Keris looked up in astonishment and went back into the shop to see whatever was alarming the normally placid animal.
It was another customer, a man just dismounting out in the yard.
‘Hush up,’ she hissed at Yerrie. It backed over into a corner, lashing its tail angrily. She stared out of the door, thinking the visitor must have a dog, but she couldn’t see one. He did have a pair of matched crossings-horses that could have been twins they were so alike. Short, with stumpy necks, stiff manes and thick legs, striped all over with brown and black and dirty grey, crossings-horses were unprepossessing beasts, much ridiculed by those who did not ride them. Their value lay in their stamina—they could run for hours carrying heavy loads—and their ability to leap, not heights, but widths. Their hindquarters and back legs had the hidden power of coiled springs, while their narrow backs, well-padded with fat, made them comfortable to ride, even though they were bad-tempered and impatient. Unstablers, those ley-lit who lived in stabilities yet worked the Unstable for a living, would ride nothing else, and traditionally resented anyone else owning or using one.
Even if she had not seen the horses, she would have soon known their owner was an Unstabler. He had the aura of assurance and the lack of conformity that was commonplace among those who chose to work outside the stabilities. Couriers, guides, mapmakers, traders, tinkers, peddlers—such men, leading dangerous and often solitary lives, rarely followed convention, and while some were uncouth and tongue-tied in any kind of town society, most displayed the same sort of quiet confidence this man had. He was dressed all in brown and his clothes were of Trician quality, but they seemed to conform to the dictates of the Rule only loosely. At a guess, she’d have said he was dressed more for comfort than any desire to please rule-chantors. His age she thought to be about thirty-five or forty. When he swung himself out of the saddle with an easy animal grace, she saw there was a long whip coiled at the side of his saddle. She’d seen such before: the plaited hide of it would be impregnated with slivers of glass. Not a weapon for the squeamish, and her immediate thought was, A tough man. His eyes were chips of black obsidian; the gaze he gave her as he crossed the yard to the shop door was one of total disinterest. He had looked and seen nothing that merited the slightest curiosity on his part and his gaze ranged on to look past her into the shop.
She turned away, humbled and riled, and went to stand behind the counter top.
He stopped in the doorway for a moment to look around. Even as he made the greeting kinesis he scarcely seemed to notice her. When he spoke, he was looking at the maps on the wall, not at her, and he had a voice like a slide of gravel down a hillslope, all rough edges and conflict. ‘Is Piers around?’ he asked. The tone was polite enough; it was just the voice that was extraordinary. The cat backed up against the wall in the far corner, its whole body shivering with fear, all its fur on end, its teeth bared. She blinked in astonishment. She’d never seen the animal in such a state before. Whoever this man was, he’d reduced Yerrie to a mass of trembling terror just by his presence.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, eyes still on the cat. ‘He’s not here. How can I help you?’ She wrenched her gaze away from Yerrie to look at the man. He wore throwing knives. She’d never seen anyone but her father wear those—to use them required a skill not many bothered to master.
‘I need to see Piers. It is important. Where is he?’ He looked at her then, still without much interest. He obviously did not intend to explain any further.
‘He’s away on a surveying trip. He’s expected back any day now.’
‘Ah. Then I shall have to come again.’ He sketched a farewell kinesis and swivelled on his heel.
‘Can I give him a message?’ she asked, coldly polite. Some perverse part of her wanted to detain him, wanted to have him really see her as a person, instead of having his eyes flick over her as if she was part of the furnishing, and a rather shabby part at that.
He turned back in the doorway. ‘It’s up-to-date maps I want, child, and you can hardly supply those if Piers is still out on his surveying trip.’ The tone was still mild, but the ‘child’ rankled.
Bastard, she thought. In her mind she savoured the word forbidden by convention to her tongue. In the corner, Yerrie spat.
He heard and turned his gaze on the cat, noticing it for the first time. The animal’s back rose, fur hackled, and it snarled, a low growling in the back of the throat.
The effect on the man was extraordinary. He stood stock still while a slow flush spread from the back of his neck to his face, suffusing his sun-tanned skin with colour. It wasn’t embarrassment, she realised, it was shame. The man was ashamed, like a lad caught peeping in a girl’s bedroom window as she undressed. For a moment he seemed at a loss. Twice he made as if to speak, but closed his mouth each time as if he could not trust himself. She gaped at him as he turned his look back to her. A competent, whip-wielding, knife-throwing Unstabler who blushed like a schoolboy? It was ridiculous. ‘Has anyone else been asking for Piers lately?’ he asked finally. The gravel-slide voice was explosively harsh and she almost jumped.
‘Everyone asks for Piers,’ she replied tartly. ‘They don’t seem to think I know enough about maps to sell one.’
‘I mean, specifically for him. Someone not interested in buying a map.’
‘You mean, someone like you?’ She shook her head. ‘No, I can’t say there’s anyone like that been here lately.’ She stared at him full in the face, and for the first time he really appeared to see her.
He nodded his thanks, sketched another farewell, and was gone. Yerrie took the opportunity to flee into the kitchen.
She remained standing where she was, unaccountably afraid.
Thinking back, she tried to place the man. Over the years she’d come to know the ley-lit who regularly worked the crossings to and from the First Stability. They all needed maps and Piers Kaylen was the best mapmaker who charted the land north of the Wide. As a young child she’d spent hours hidden beneath the counter listening to her father talk to his customers, hearing the tales of their encounters with the Wild and the Minions of Chaos, hearing their experiences with ley lines told and retold. Sometimes she thought she knew as much about the fickle character of the Wanderer as her father did. She would see in her mind the brooding expanse of the Wide or the knotted upheaval that was the Snarled Fist, and she’d dream of the day when she’d ride out with Piers: Keris Kaylen, apprentice mapmaker.
But she couldn’t remember ever hearing or seeing before this man with obsidian eyes and a voice that would scour burnt stew pots. A man who was ashamed because he terrified a cat half-way to Chaos…
Perhaps he’d only recently come north of the Wide. Perhaps he came only infrequently and she’d happened to miss his visits—for, of course, as she’d grown older, there had been less opportunity to eavesdrop and she’d grown too big to fit unnoticed under the counter, although for a while she had continued to cling to the fanciful notion that she would one day be her father’s appren
tice. It had seemed so logical, after all. Thirl was not interested in mapmaking; she was. She loved everything about maps and charts; her brother did not. She loved poring over them, she was fascinated by the changes one season to the next; he was bored stupid. She was always begging Piers, when he was at home, to show her how the theodolite worked, how to use a compass, how to translate surveying angles into features drawn on a chart and how to read map co-ordinates. Thirl could hardly contain his impatience when such things were mentioned. Surely then, it was obvious she would be the one to follow in her father’s footsteps.
She had worried miserably about whether she was one of the ley-lit or not, because only someone who was ley-lit could possibly map the Unstable, but it had never occurred to her that the Rule did not encourage women to be Unstablers. Still less did she dream that her father did not want her to be a mapmaker. She took his approval for granted. Then, on the day that a chance remark of hers indicated to Piers the way she was thinking, he’d thrown back his head and roared with laughter until tears ran down his face. She’d been standing there in the shop, dressed in her grey pinafore, her hands locked behind her back, and she’d listened to that laughter ending all her dreams, the hurt of the knowledge crushing the dream inside her with a pain she would remember forever.
Thirl would be the mapmaker. Thirl who had no wish to see the Unstable, who never dreamt of crossing the Graven or the Riven.
Worse still was the reason. The stupid, horrible, unbelievable reason that had nothing to do with ability or interest or skill. Because she was a girl and Thirl was a boy. Because she was born to be forever without any vocation or trade except that of wife. Because of the Rule.
The bitter seeds sown deep inside her that day had rooted and grown. Never again would she wholly believe that there was some innate goodness to Order and the Rule. How could there be goodness when she was condemned to marriage, housework and raising babies, simply because she was born the daughter of a mapmaker?