Charon watched them, too, and his shoulders drew up tight. He’d worn the same pinched expression in Rivervale and the valley village and at the doorway to Eiland’s home in Summerton. Before, Eiland had mistaken it for cruelty. Now, though, he saw the naked dread in Charon’s eyes. More than death, Charon feared to be feared. It was the one scrap of power left to him, and he hated it more than pain, more than death.
Without thinking, Eiland reached out and touched Charon’s cheekbone, bringing his gaze back around. “We have to try something,” he said in a low voice.
Charon breathed out slowly and nodded.
Ik'r straightened as they approached him. He had dark, dark eyes, jet-black hair, and rings of gold in both ears. He eyed the jar of salve skeptically when Eiland showed it to him. Eiland couldn’t blame him: the salve had turned dark and lumpy with age, and it oozed thickly from Eiland’s fingers as he dug out a clump.
Beside him, Charon loosened the collar of his shirt and rolled his sleeves up to his upper arms. Eiland’s hesfast draught had done its work and while the skin of his elbows was reddened, no sores had broken the surface. There could be no mistaking the old scars, though.
The Cursed bandit looked at them then lifted his eyes to Charon’s face. They studied each other silently and Eiland had no idea what passed between them, but the tension in Charon’s shoulders eased a notch.
When Ik'r pulled back the bandages on his arms, the skin underneath was raw and oozing. Charon hissed through his teeth in sympathy, but Eiland felt his spine straighten, felt something click over in his mind. It had always been there, but after that day under the maple tree it had grown from a whisper to a strident voice. Someone needed his help; he knew what to do.
Firmly taking the outlaw’s wrist, he applied a thick glob of salve to his elbow. Wariness quickly melted to astonished relief, and after some exclamations Ik'r whipped off his shirt altogether, urging Eiland to attend to the small sores around his neck. His wife took the jar, sniffing and touching it, clearly trying to determine what the salve contained.
Charon flagged down Rûak, who acted as their broken translator.
In very short order Eiland and Charon were showing Ik'r and Ghouleh how to make the salve, with Rûak passing on instructions. Bandit appointed herself the chief ingredient preparer. She chopped up gyman root with alarming skill for one so small; Eiland did not especially want to know why she knew how to wield a knife so skillfully.
All of the bandits seemed to possess a fair amount of herbal knowledge, so it was only a matter of showing them how to put it the ingredients together. By now Eiland had learned a few of their words, just simple things like “yes” and “no” and “good.” When he tried them out on Bandit and the others, though, they laughed at him.
“They say your pronunciation is bad,” Charon explained, smiling a little.
Eiland made a face at Bandit, who laughed and waved her little knife at him.
The rest of the bandits watched the process unfold with some interest, and soon Eiland got a surprise of his own: the singing woman, Tûanal, produced a thick bundle of the soft blue-green grass from the eastern river lands. She and several of the others popped handfuls of the stuff into their mouths, chewing for a while before spitting it back out. The resulting cud was soft and gooey and sweet-smelling; when Eiland touched a bit to his tongue—“Oh you can’t be serious,” Charon exclaimed, making a face—it tasted exactly like honey.
None of the bandits shared Charon’s squeamishness: they only rolled up their sleeves, rubbing the goop on their limbs and faces then washing it off with water. It left the skin smooth and cool.
Eiland raised his eyebrows at Charon, who scowled. “Don’t look at me like that. You want to put spit on your skin, go right ahead.”
Bene laughed, surprisingly high and horselike. He said something in a teasing voice that made Charon frown harder. The others joined in the laughter. An invisible tension eased around the camp. Space was made for them by the fire, food was shared, and without asking, Eiland knew the price for their safe passage had been paid.
That night, instead of all lying down to sleep after supper like they usually did, the bandits packed the children off to a small bower of trees nearby and Ghouleh brought out a bottle as large as Eiland’s arm. Its dark contents sloshed inside. Rûak called it “meka” with a sideways smile, his gold teeth glinting in the firelight.
The bottle passed from hand to hand and each bandit took a small sip. When his turn came, Eiland tentatively drank. The contents burned hot as they slid down his throat, tasting of spice and apples, and he dissolved into coughs. The large man to his left thumped his back—mostly for show, Eiland suspected—before taking his own hearty draught.
“What is that?” Eiland gasped to Charon, wiping his mouth. He couldn’t be quite sure but he thought his lips might be tingling.
“Everyone has different names for meka. You’d probably call it the Water of Sight.”
Eiland gaped at him. “We can’t drink that,” he exclaimed, eyeing the bottle as it went around the circle. “It’s for the priests. The Writings forbid anyone else from even touching it.”
Turning his head, Charon studied Eiland for a long moment before he asked, “Do you really think the gods are going to damn either one of us because of what’s in that bottle?”
There was no mistaking the direction of his words. Suddenly Eiland was back in the orchard, his palms sweaty and his mouth full of the taste of peaches, and Charon.
He blinked and saw the fire again. Charon sat next to him, dirty and tired. Across the fire, Bene the bandit leader was eyeing Eiland with a sly grin on his face. As Eiland watched, Bene rose to one knee, lifted the bottle in a kind of salute, took a large mouthful, then leaned toward the fire and blew it out hard.
An arc of flame spurted upwards. Eiland flinched away, his eyes dazzled. Even after the arc disappeared, the after-light of it lingered in his vision, accompanied by a sharp smell that faded before it could be identified. Bene began to sing in a low, growling voice, a chant that Eiland strained to catch. Tûanal sang a wordless melody in counterpoint. Her pure, full voice rose and fell, twisting in the air like smoke.
Someone on the other side of the fire took out a small hand drum and beat a slow rhythm. Conversation faded; there was only the fire, the two voices, the drum, and the bottle circling from hand to hand. Eiland licked his lips nervously, taking the smallest mouthful he could before passing it on.
After several turns the world began to spin around Eiland. Everything felt slightly unreal. In the light of a full moon, the white trunks of the birches around them seemed to glow; they made Eiland think of the pillars of the temple back in Summerton, white stone rising out of the mud of the village.
A memory filled his mind: his sister Imra’s wedding day, when the cherry blossoms had been thick on the trees and the priests’ robes had all looked so fine, and the sunlight had glinted on the tears that poured silently down Imra’s cheeks…
Eiland twitched. The song had ended, and the bandits were talking again, laughing.
A chill ran over Eiland’s skin. He swallowed hard, tasting the drink in the corners of his mouth. The Water was meant only for the priests; whatever visions the gods had in store, Eiland didn’t want to see them.
The bandits did not seem to share his fears. They grew raucous and louder with every drink, speaking in their own language and laughing even as some of them periodically fell silent, their eyes going distant as the visions took them. The drumbeat began again, faster than before, and Bene’s wife Belatu rose to dance. Her hips moved in such a way that Eiland could not help but stare, wondering what had happened to her spine. They rolled from side to side like a serpent, like smoke, like Tûanal’s voice.
Tûanal began to sing again and Eiland twitched, wondering if he had conjured her to do so with his mind. The other bandits clapped along to the drums and cheered when Belatu finished with a long, slow bow that took her forehead all the way to the ground.
No sooner had she sat down than Ik'r swung to his feet and loudly proclaimed something before dropping to his knees in front of Bene. Whatever he had said made Bene raise an eyebrow and the rest of the bandits break into uproarious laughter.
Bene cast his wife a questioning look, but Belatu was laughing with the others and merely waved her hand. With a sardonic smile, Bene held out both his hands to Ik'r, palms raised.
Eiland might not understand all their words but he knew the gesture: Ik'r had just proposed marriage to his leader, and the offer had been accepted. From the smiles on their faces it was clearly meant in jest, yet it still startled him to see such a thing even japed at.
Eiland’s disquiet deepened when he realized it was the Solstice, when families declared their marriage plans and young men went to the houses of young women to claim their betrothals. If he were back in Summerton right now, his parents would probably be making him a match.
Ik'r took Bene’s hands with an exaggerated expression of delight, his face tilted high and his eyes fluttering. Bene let him kiss his palms then suddenly grabbed Ik'r’s wrists and yanked hard.
Ik'r tumbled forward with a squawk that cut off sharply when Bene caught both sides of his face between his hands and—and kissed him.
The rest of the campfire whistled and catcalled. No one called for the joke to stop even when Ik'r went a step further and deepened the kiss, nudging Bene’s head to one side.
Watching them—and he couldn’t not watch them, couldn’t not stare in frozen shock—Eiland flushed so hot that it must show in the darkness. Everyone must be able to see. Part of him wanted to rush over and separate them: they couldn’t do that, not out in the open like this. There were children—their children, sleeping not ten feet away, and their wives—or what Eiland had assumed were their wives—sat on either side. Yet they went on kissing like lovers.
It wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t right; he’d always known.
He’d done it before too.
Eiland tore his eyes away, his skin hot and tight, and stared down at his hands. He felt the prickle of Charon’s gaze and breathed out shakily.
Across the campfire the kissing finally ended and Ik'r leaned back, pressing one wrist to his forehead as if in a swoon. Bene barked a laugh. Their wives leaned back to speak around the two of them, grinning at each other.
The bottle came around again and Eiland gulped down a mouthful. It burned less this time, or maybe he’d just gotten used to it. He took another swig.
Another song began, and more people joined in this time. Eiland didn’t know the song or the words but he swayed to the beat and joined in the chorus with a wordless croon. He felt as if his head had come slightly adrift of his body.
Someone put more wood on the fire, building it higher until the heat was almost unbearable, and Eiland had to squint in the flames to see anyone else’s faces. It looked like they were all on fire.
Burning, burning. They were all burning.
Someone touched his shoulder, and Eiland sucked in a breath. His lungs ached. His hands shook.
“Eiland,” Charon said. When Eiland turned, his head seemed to move too far past his shoulders and he put out a hand, catching himself with one hand on Charon’s leg.
“Sorry,” he stammered, pulling his hand back. He promptly lost his balance again—it felt like he was weighted on that side, helpless to right himself—and wound up putting his hand even higher on Charon’s thigh.
He lifted his head. The firelight reflected in Charon’s round eyes. He sat perfectly still, so still Eiland wanted to shake him, just to be sure Charon was really there, inside the face so close to his.
There was only the dark sky and the fire, and Charon. The invisible weight around Eiland’s neck pulled him closer, so that he had to put both hands on Charon to hold himself up.
Distantly he knew he shouldn’t…but the bandits had kissed, hadn’t they?
A shudder traveled along Eiland’s bones, rattling underneath his flesh. He hadn’t meant to think of kissing again. He had before, and the taste of fruit ghosted over his tongue in reminder.
The firelight reflected in Charon’s round eyes. His fingers closed around Eiland’s wrist, ensnaring him. Eiland tipped nearer and nearer…and then he blinked and pulled back, wavering anticipation turning to confusion.
“Why is your hair wet?” His voice sounded as though he were speaking inside a hollow tree trunk.
Charon frowned, flushed and bewildered. “It’s not.”
It was, though. Charon looked soaked to the bone, like he’d gone headfirst into a river. Water dripped out of his hair.
Eiland wanted to ask him where he had found so much water, but then someone grabbed his shoulder, laughing and pulling him to his feet.
Afterward, long afterward, Eiland would think to himself that the gods must have a rather sly sense of humor.
The bandits had begun to dance and dragged Eiland to join them. He twirled around with Belatu, her hair flaring around her head and her gold teeth flashing in the firelight. The only one not dancing was Charon, who sat by the fire. Whenever the dance turned Eiland in that direction, he found Charon’s eyes on him.
Belatu pulled him away, out into the grass under the stars. There were others around them and behind them, shouting in the dark between the flares of firebugs. The night seemed to be full of their laughter. It made Eiland think of those golden haystack days, running wild with his brothers and sisters through the fields, pumping his legs to catch up yet always trailing behind, too young and too small.
By the time he’d gotten big enough to keep up, they’d all taken husbands and wives of their own, and Eiland had no one to run with under the stars anymore.
Eiland’s limbs tingled. He felt as if he were floating, like he could step up onto the tops of the grass and run for miles without bending a stalk. He clutched at Belatu’s shoulders until they slipped out from under his fingers and he was alone in the night.
His heart hurt; it ached. He thought, maybe, that it had been aching for a long time.
Above him the stars blurred into circles, and Eiland finally tumbled to the ground.
* * *
He woke up bleary and sick to his stomach, his face pressed into soft grass.
He was alone. The plains around Eiland were flat and empty as ever. He stood for a moment in the tall grass, staring in all directions and utterly lost.
The smell of smoke led him back to the grove of birch trees. Charon sat beside the remains of last night’s fire, stirring its embers to something useful. The only sign of the bandits were scuff marks on the ground and the empty bottle of meka.
As Eiland approached, Charon raised his head. For a long moment Eiland stood at the edge of the trees and Charon sat by the fire. Their gazes met in the middle and wove into a tight knot.
Eiland knew that Charon was remembering firelight and nearness and almost, and he knew that Charon knew he was thinking of it as well.
He broke the knot first, dropping his eyes and forcing his feet to advance, one in front of the other, until he reached the fireside and he could let them fold up underneath him again. Sitting down with a bump, he made a face that he hoped conveyed his deep suffering. “Ung.”
“Are you all right?” Charon asked, his tone stilted and overly polite.
Eiland nodded without lifting his gaze from the fire. There was something bubbling in a pot, likely the remains of last night’s bandit feast. Eiland’s stomach twitched unpleasantly and he swallowed hard.
“Are they gone?” He thought so, but Eiland wouldn’t put it past the outlaw tribe to be lurking in the branches above his head.
When Charon nodded he breathed out through his nose and said, “What I can’t understand is, why was Bandit on the ferry in Rivervale? She must spy on all the merchants who cross, right? So they must have chosen to follow us instead of anyone else. Why go through all that trouble only to change their minds and not rob us? Do you…do you think they knew all along that we h
ad something to help the Curse?”
“Maybe,” Charon allowed. “Or maybe they prefer to lure their targets into a false sense of security, get them drunk on meka, and then steal all of their possessions.”
Eiland jerked his eyes up.
Charon’s expression was blank, but it cracked by slow degrees. “Your face.”
“Charon!” Eiland clutched his chest. “Tell me they didn’t take all of our things!”
“They didn’t take all of our things.” Charon lifted his poking stick from the fire to point at the bower of trees where the bandit children had bedded down last night. “You’ll notice your pack sitting right over there.”
“Thank the gods. Don’t do that.”
Eiland climbed to his feet and took a few steps in that direction. Then he stopped short.
A small crown of white flowers sat atop the pack, woven into one of the straps.
Behind him, Charon spoke in a low voice full of laughter. “I’m not quite sure, but I think you might have gotten married to a bandit last night.”
Chapter Eleven
“Stop being such a baby,” Eiland said, “and let me rub my spit-grass on you.”
Charon made a noise like a cat being strangled and kept walking. “Get away.”
“It works!” Eiland insisted, hurrying after him. It’d been six days since the Solstice and Eiland had been testing the bandits’ skin remedy diligently. His neck and shoulders had burned when they’d first reached the plains and reburned a dozen times over during their crossing; the sweet cream that resulted from chewing the grass cud soothed his stings instantly. On a hunch Eiland had applied it to his blisters as well and found it just as effective.
Charon remained unswayed. “It’s spit. No thank you.”
“It’s mostly grass, just—all-chewed-up-grass! Come on, Charon, you sleep on grass every night! Augh, you’re impossible.”
Eiland swiped the glob of cream onto his bare arms then trotted to catch up to Charon.
They’d left the flat plains behind, and the rising ground under their feet had steepened considerably. Yesterday they had topped the first foothill of the mountains and entered into a thick forest—but this was unlike the woods Eiland had grown up in.
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