“If you surmount all challenges and obtain what you desire, you’ll disappoint the primaries, Rhuan. You are the first child Alario has sired in three hundred human years.”
Rhuan laughed. “I would disappoint some of the primaries, but not all of them. Many of them would be pleased to see Alario’s child fail. It would weaken Alario’s standing among them.”
Darmuth asked, “Do you suppose it is as difficult for Brodhi?”
Rhuan at last was able to turn his head. Vision was returning to normal. Over one shoulder he observed Darmuth, who sat a horse made of air and shadow, taking substance from Grandmother Moon. Darmuth could do that.
“Brodhi,” Rhuan managed, “suffers daily. But it has nothing to do with—this.”
“Ah. You refer to his bigotry about humans. Yes, I agree; life would be much less difficult if he rid himself of that bias.” The laughter was soft. “Perhaps be more like you?”
Rhuan heaved himself to his feet, catching his balance before he staggered. The worst had passed, though the weakness afterward was never pleasant. He needed rest. He needed ritual and release so that rest was possible.
He turned to face the man on horseback. Grandmother Moon found little purchase on Darmuth’s features, so that his expression was shadowed. “Oh, no doubt that would be Brodhi’s choice. To be more like me.” Rhuan moistened dry lips so his forced grin wouldn’t crack them. “I think Brodhi prefers even humans to me.”
“Ferize is coming tonight,” Darmuth announced, changing the subject, as was his wont, without preamble. Then he paused, stilled, as if listening, as if scenting the air. “In fact, she’s already here.”
“Well.” Rhuan tested himself inwardly, prodding for lurking pain, but it had dissipated. In its place he felt the expected nausea, the knotting of muscles at the back of his neck. He shook his head and walked to the spotted horse. Weariness descended, washed over him. He needed privacy before Jorda found him and set him to a task. “I’m sure they’re aware of it, too, Darmuth. It draws nearer every day.”
“I notice Brodhi came here anyway.”
Rhuan scrubbed the back of his hand across his drying brow, then massaged the rigid muscle on either side of his neck with strong fingers. “He accepted the journey and the tests even as I did. I am a guide. He is a courier. We serve for five human years. Only one year remains. You know perfectly well that if either of us forsakes that final year for any reason—”
Darmuth broke in. “Yes, but if Alisanos goes active, everything changes. Perhaps even vows and journeys.”
Rhuan slid gentle hands along his mount’s jaw, lowering his face to share a lengthy exchange of breath, nose to nose. To draw in the warm, comforting scent of equine flesh. “I will go on as I am, Darmuth. I have a duty to the humans. And I made a vow unconnected to the one made before the primaries, but which, to me, carries as much weight.” He moved, caught doubled handfuls of mane, swung himself up. “To Jorda.”
Darmuth’s laughter was unfettered. “He’s human! And merely a karavan-master.”
“Now you sound like Brodhi.” He settled his weight more comfortably across the spotted back, gathering the rope rein. Even to Darmuth, he could not explain all his reasons for needing to remain. Indeed, as suggested, he could ride away now, leaving behind the karavan, the humans, and the pain that would come more often if he remained so close to an active Alisanos, pain that would increase as they neared the borderlands, but he would forsake far more than duty to the humans and a vow to the gods were he to depart.
He would also forsake his only approximation of humanity.
“So,” Rhuan said, “run along, little demon. You may now report to the primaries and tell them what I have said in answer to this latest test.”
“Oh, this wasn’t a test,” Darmuth said lightly. “This was merely me reaquainting you with your options.”
“You may tell them also that I find such inquisitions by proxy wholly transparent.” Rhuan, reining his mount around, sank his heels into spotted sides and set the horse to a run, leaving Darmuth and his moon-made mount behind.
Not that it mattered. Darmuth would be waiting for him when he got back to the karavan anyway, having dispensed with imaginary horses and relied strictly on himself.
Unfair, Rhuan thought, who could do no such thing. But not unexpected. Rudeness was but one of the annoying things he had discovered in riding with an Alisani demon.
Chapter 11
AUDRUN, TOLD BY DAVYN to go ahead to Jorda’s diviner while he and Gillan hitched the oxen and moved the wagon, found the woman waiting at her tall, yellow-wheeled wagon. She sat casually in the open doorway of her wagon, brass-tipped boot toes peeping out from layers of colorful split skirts, chin propped in one hand. Her dark hair was a mass of long ringlets tamed only slightly by ornamented hair sticks anchoring coils against the back of her head. She wore a sleeveless knee-length overtunic belted with fawn-hued leather wrapped low on her hips. Brass studs had been hammered into the belt in myriad tangled designs, and a handful of feather-and-carved-wood charms hung from it. She was a slender, striking woman, with hazel eyes, high cheekbones, straight nose, and a wide, expressive mouth.
She rose as Audrun approached, welcoming her with a warm smile and gesturing for her to mount the steps into the tall, big-wheeled wagon. Dyed canvas sidewalls had been dropped down for privacy, and as Audrun followed the diviner into the wagon, the woman shut the door.
As with the exterior, the interior of the wagon was a panoply of colors. Even the shallow drawers built into the underside of the diviner’s narrow bed were painted and adorned with brass pull knobs. A pierced-tin lantern hung from the central curved Mother Rib, and in the ocherous light Audrun saw the glint of gilt scrollwork winding around the waxed wood, the dull glow of dangling brass charm-strings. Pots, pans, mugs, and ladles hung from lesser ribs.
“Please.” The diviner gestured for Audrun to seat herself on the narrow bed. Here too were myriad colors in the rich, deep dyes used on the coverlet. The fabric’s woven nap was a mix of smooth and nubby. “It’s informal this way, but you don’t strike me as a woman in need of excess ritual.”
Audrun essayed a crooked smile. “Tonight, perhaps, less even than usual. The day’s events have been, well, unusual.” Lower back aching, Audrun sat down upon the bed and neatened skirts that, she realized in dismay, were coated with the dust and grit of travel. She had washed her hands before preparing dinner, but now, faced with the tidiness of the diviner’s wagon and clothing, not to mention the delicate texture of her warm-toned olive skin and the clarity in hazel eyes, Audrun felt the rest of her could have done with washing as well.
And a change of clothing to boot, she reflected glumly, with or without excess ritual.
The diviner sat down next to Audrun, smiling in a way that struck her as sincere, not donned for business. “My name is Ilona. My gift is to read hands, to determine whether what lies ahead for those who wish to join the karavan is auspicious. It’s harsh, I do know, to realize that a journey may be ended before it begins merely because of what I see in your hand.” Her expression became more serious, “but Jorda is responsible for the lives of all the people in this karavan. He would be negligent were he to accept individuals who could mean danger for everyone else.”
Audrun studied the woman’s expression and black-lashed eyes, seeking anything akin to guile. She found none. “My name is Audrun. We are a man, his wife, four children, and—” Her hand covered her belly, “—another yet to be born. We do not intend to travel all the way with this karavan, but to turn off and take another route to Atalanda.” Desperation edged her tone; were they to be turned away after all? “Forgive my plain speech, but what danger could we cause?”
The diviner did not curb her words into a gentler truth. “Possibly the death of everyone in this karavan.”
It shocked Audrun into a sharp disbelief that made her blunter yet, with skepticism undisguised. “Merely by coming with you?”
“Yes.”
Audru
n considered it. Though raised to respect and honor what diviners said in the practice of their art, she was not certain she believed this woman—or perhaps it was simply that she didn’t wish to believe her. She had fought a war already this day and won, gaining permission for badly-needed passage from the karavan-master himself, only to have his hired guide suggest another skirmish lay ahead; and now the hired diviner suggested by words and expression that yet a third battle faced her. Audrun was tired and short of patience.
She smoothed back straggles of fine light brown hair, trying to maintain a self-control that felt perilously close to breaking. “What would you have me do?”
“In a moment, give me the loan of your hand. But first, you must forgive my plain speech.” Her tone and eyes were steady. “Please understand—my concern is limited, it must be limited, by the nature of my employ. I will look only for images that have to do with the safety of the karavan. But there may be other things I see as well, on the edges. I will not examine those images because they aren’t pertinent, but they will nonetheless exist. It’s up to you, you see, whether I tell you anything of these other images.”
“Oh.” That thought had not occured to Audrun. “And if I said no?”
The diviner’s smile was brief. “You would be one among many; few karavaners want to think beyond the journey itself. I would tell you only what I read as concerns the karavan.”
Audrun drew in her breath. Fourteen diviners had said they must go to Atalanda—would this one be the fifteenth? “Then, yes. Tell me what you see for my children…” She placed both hands against her abdomen. “… and for this child as well.” “Then give me your hand.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Audrun extended her right hand palm up. Ilona took it into her own and turned it over, examining the tributaries of blood beneath the flesh on the back of her hand. Aware suddenly of broken nails and roughened cuticles, Audrun wanted to jerk her hand away and hide it in her equally dirty skirts. But the diviner, as if sensing—reading?—the impulse, firmed her grip.
Cool hands, Audrun discovered. Cool, gentle hands. Fingertips traced the tendons and bones hidden just beneath the flesh, the lines across her knuckles, the fit of nailbeds into her fingers. Then Ilona turned the hand over, laying bare the palm with deep and shallow creases, the calluses of work.
“Be at ease,” she murmured.
Under such scrutiny, Audrun believed that impossible. Especially when she was so tired, and an aching back robbed her of forbearance.
The diviner put her own hand across Audrun’s, though she did not touch it. For long moments her hand hovered, palm over palm, then was drawn away. With the long middle finger of an elegant right hand, Ilona gently traced the visible lines.
Audrun did not look at her own hand or at Ilona’s, but into the woman’s face, searching for a reaction that could be read merely because a wife, a mother, learned to do such things with her husband, with her children. It was not a gift, merely experience. But Ilona’s face was expressionless. Almost serene.
A tingle crossed Audrun’s hand. She looked down sharply, thinking the diviner had done something. But Ilona merely cradled the hand palm up as before, baring it to the freckled amber light of the pierced-tin lantern.
From the creases in Audrun’s palm, tingling transmuted to moisture. Sweat, she believed, though she was not over- warm. But the dampness swelled, welling up to form droplets, then, as Audrun’s stiffened hand trembled, trickled slowly off the edge of her hand to spot her dusty skirts.
Startled, she opened her mouth to demand an explanation. But the diviner spoke first.
“Tears,” Ilona said. “Tears for loss, for grief, for confusion. And blood.” She rolled Audrun’s fingers closed and released her hand with a brief pressure of her own. “There is nothing in your hand that speaks of danger for the karavan.” The diviner’s eyes remained guileless and forthright, offering no unspoken words or warnings in the language of the heart. “You are free to accompany us.”
“But—the other images you saw.” Audrun felt apprehension rising. “There is danger for my children?”
“Tears,” Ilona said softly. “Grief. Blood.” Her eyes were fully aware of what could be inferred from the words. “I saw no more than that.”
Audrun wanted to put to the diviner any number of questions, to request a deeper reading. She was on the verge of asking when Ilona rose.
“I’m sorry, but the night is full. Now we must see what lies in your husband’s hand.” She opened the wagon door onto the night again.
Dismissal. Audrun stood up, pressing the damp palm against her skirts to wipe it free of moisture. She moved past the diviner and descended the few steps, thinking over what had been said. Desperation and frustration had faded somewhat with the knowledge that Ilona saw no danger in Audrun’s company on the journey, but Davyn’s hand might offer different news.
Audrun paused, then turned back to look at the woman. She consciously tamed her tone; she did not mean her words as a challenge, but as an appeal for explanation. “None of the other diviners we consulted said any such thing as you have.”
“I read true,” Ilona said, “what is shown to me. But what is shown to one diviner need not be shown to another.”
Audrun could not keep the irony from her tone. “That is—convenient.”
Ilona smiled. “Isn’t it?”
She had expected the woman to deny it, or take offense. Instead, she was amused. Audrun didn’t know if that was ill or good. “Should I be afraid of this journey?”
“There is safety in more rather than fewer,” Ilona said, “and that knowledge has nothing whatsoever to do with your hand. It is merely common sense. You and your family would do better to remain with the karavan than to take the other road.”
“He may have told you that,” Audrun pointed out, driven to debunk. “The guide. You may not have seen that in my hand at all.”
Nor did that offend the woman. Ilona merely shrugged casually as she leaned against the doorjamb. “It doesn’t matter what Rhuan may have told me. I have read your hand. I saw tears, and blood. I saw loss, and grief, and confusion. But it’s true a charlatan could say he saw much the same, knowing you are bound for the road near Alisanos.”
“He told you that, too? The guide?”
Ilona asked, “Does it matter? My reading is never dependent on information given by others. Only on what information the hand itself offers.”
Audrun nodded, once again wiping her right hand against her skirts. She was tense with frustration, but knew that the conversation was ended. “I’ll send my husband.”
ILONA WATCHED THE woman walk away straight-backed into darkness out of fire glow, conscious of a regret that dug more deeply than usual into her spirit. Years before, she had learned how to shield herself against the emotions of others lest she be unable to withdraw from them; the blessing and curse of fleshly divination, such as hand-reading, required the sublimation of one’s own sense of self into awareness of the client’s.
Some hands were easily read. Others required more of an investment of her art, more sublimation of herself, and left Ilona exhausted. With this woman, mother of four and bearer of a fifth, Ilona had driven herself deeply into the sense of self, the inner heart, as hand-readers called it. That sense offered up to those with the art a doorway into the future. Some doorways stood open. Some were half closed, while others yet stood barely ajar. And then there were those individuals whose doors were not only shut, but barred and bolted from the inner heart.
The farmer’s wife had been open, but pregnancy complicated matters. Ilona needed to separate the woman’s self from the unborn’s. She had managed it, just—the baby would be a daughter—but keeping mother and daughter apart had left her own sense of self aching with the effort.
Tears to be shed, and blood. A grief so painful as to harm the heart, the soul. All interwoven with the birth of the child.
But none of it spoke of danger for the karavan, and that was her only duty: to w
arn Jorda should the presence of anyone threaten the safety of the journey and the welfare of the people. It was not among the terms of her employment to read beyond the journey. Jorda had been explicit. She might spend herself too profligately otherwise, and be used up when Jorda most needed her. But this woman, this wife, was deserving of more. Ilona wished what she saw had promised kindness, not fear.
She sighed, gripping the doorjamb. The day had been long and she was wrung out; she needed rest for her soul as well as her gift. But the husband, the father, was yet to come, and it was imperative that she not only find the doorway into his self, but to push it open should it be closed.
Chapter 12
UNLIKE JORDA OR JORDA’S diviners, Rhuan did not own a wagon. He generally slept in the open beneath the vastness of sky and the cycles of the moon, watching Maiden, Mother, and Grandmother as well as Orphan Sky. But he did own a tent for such occasions as bad weather, and strung the oiled canvas shelter amid trees, binding guy-ropes to branches. When trees did not exist, which occurred often in the grasslands, and the weather insisted he do something more than curse it, Rhuan borrowed the sideboards of Jorda’s supply wagon and pitched the tent to form a simple lean-to.
This night, the final night before departure, the tent was not set up but packed. Rhuan had intended to roll up in a single blanket upon a reed mat beneath the light of Grandmother Moon and the stars. But now privacy was most definitely called for, the need for apartness driving him away from humans, even away from friends such as Jorda and Ilona.
The horse he returned to the picket line. Rhuan stopped briefly at the supply wagon, collected a beaded leather bag, and sought that privacy.
He walked away from the cookfires, dying now into ruddy coals; away from the painted wagons, the humans, the people whose lives would, on the morrow, reside in his hands. For all that his wish was to be of them, his current need demanded something other than companionship among the folk who were, no matter how much he liked and admired them, alien to his race. The reason was simplicity itself: they would not understand. Could not understand.
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