Snare

by Katharine Kerr

  Zayn went about half a mile on before he saw the light ahead of him, a pale blue fire bobbing as if it were a lantern held in someone’s hand. He fell to one knee, laid the staff down, and nocked an arrow in his bow. As the light came closer, he suddenly wondered if it were an evil spirit; if so, the bow would be useless.

  ‘Zayn?’ Ammadin called out. ‘Is that you?’

  Zayn sighed aloud, a sharp hiss of relief.

  ‘Yes. Stay where you are! You could be in danger.’

  Zayn put the arrow back in the quiver, picked up the spirit staff, and went on, stumbling on the mossy ground. When he finally saw Ammadin, he swore aloud. She was holding her hand shoulder high, and from her fingers streamed a pale bluish light like cold fire. When she spoke, he couldn’t answer: all he could do was stare at the light on her hand.

  ‘I had the feeling you’d be back at sunset,’ she said. ‘Here – what? By the gods, where did you get that bow?’

  Zayn could only shrug and watch the streaming light.

  ‘Tell me.’ Ammadin grabbed his arm with her other hand. ‘What danger? Are you hurt?’

  ‘No. The bow? I took it from a man who tried to kill me with it. Someone was hunting me out there.’

  ‘Who?’

  Zayn made an effort and looked away from the magical fire. How could he tell her the truth? Palindor had loved her once.

  ‘Someone I don’t know. Kazraks.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’ Ammadin’s voice turned hard. ‘Who?’

  ‘Very well, then. Palindor. But he had a couple of Kazraks with him.’

  Ammadin went stiff and still, her hand still tight on his arm.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Zayn went on, ‘but he had this bow. He was trying to kill me. I swear it. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No need for apologies. I believe you. Come along. We’ve got to get back to the others.’

  ‘But he – I mean Palindor. Aren’t you sorry he’s dead?’

  ‘I’m sorry he broke the law. There’s no time for chatter. Come on!’

  Once he was sitting by a fire with a bowl of stew in his hands, the day turned so dream-like in his mind that he was almost grateful to Palindor, because the death threat at least seemed real, preserving the other memories with it. In a silent grim crowd, the comnee crowded close to hear about his quest. While Ammadin, her hand now stripped of the magical light, told the story, Zayn gobbled stew and let the fire-warmth soak into him. When she finished, Apanador took the captured bow and studied the decoration on it.

  ‘It’s Palindor’s, all right,’ the chief said. ‘Well, his mother’s comnee is going to have some harsh words about this.’

  ‘Why should they?’ Dallador rose from his place. ‘Palindor acted like an ugly little coward. He went out there to murder a man with all the odds on his side.’

  ‘I know that. But will his mother see it that way?’

  ‘She’ll have to.’ Ammadin turned to Zayn. ‘He broke the laws of the gods as well as our law. When a man goes to vigil in the Mistlands, his life is as sacred as a spirit rider’s. Who would go seek a vision if he thought his enemies would be waiting for him in the holy places?’

  The comnee nodded in grim-faced agreement. Dallador sat down, satisfied.

  ‘And as for these Kazraks,’ Apanador said, ‘they’re no concern of ours. If they come hunting a comnee man, they’ll have to pay the price. Zayn, do you have enemies in the khanate?’

  ‘I must.’ Zayn picked his words carefully. ‘Maybe it’s that chief whose wife I took. But I don’t understand. That Kazrak I killed? I’ve never seen him before in my whole life. Maybe he was just a friend of Palindor’s who offered to help him.’

  ‘If another Kazrak were riding with the comnees,’ Apanador said, ‘we would have heard about it long before this. Let me think. Palindor’s mother rides with Lanador’s comnee. I don’t even know where they are – west, I think. Holy One, should we seek them out?’

  ‘No,’ Ammadin said. ‘She’s better off without a son like that. If the gods will that her path crosses ours, I’ll offer her a horse in restitution. One is about all he was worth.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll take it?’ Zayn asked.

  ‘Why not?’ Apanador glanced his way. ‘I know her, and she’ll be pleased to get any kind of blood price. By rights, we don’t have to offer her anything at all since her son was bent on murder.’

  ‘Zayn?’ Dallador broke in. ‘But do you want retribution? For the broken vision quest, I mean.’

  ‘No,’ Zayn said. ‘I just wish it hadn’t happened. I didn’t want to kill anyone, much less him.’

  Ammadin and Apanador exchanged a satisfied glance. As the crowd broke up, Dallador came over to Zayn and laid a friendly hand on his arm.

  ‘Not bad,’ Dallador said. ‘A man’s hunting you with a bow, and you’ve only got a knife, but you managed to kill him anyway.’

  ‘You gave me a good knife, that’s why.’

  Dallador grinned.

  ‘Palindor used to eat at your fire, didn’t he?’ Zayn went on. ‘Am I still a friend of yours?’

  ‘What happened was between you and him, and he was in the wrong, anyway.’

  ‘Thanks, but still –’

  ‘Let me tell you something.’ Dallador held up his hand for silence. ‘The comnees don’t count cowards as men. Palindor was a coward, so he’s no friend of mine, and he’s not worth mourning. Let me warn you: the comnees demand more from a man than you Kazraks ever would.’ He waved his hand vaguely at the encircling darkness. ‘Out here, mistakes mean death. A man who makes mistakes has no place in the comnee. Do you understand?’

  ‘Oh yes. And I’ll tell you something. I like it.’

  They shared an easy smile.

  In Ammadin’s tent a ball of pale light hung on the ridge pole like a lantern. As part of the ritual, Zayn had to describe his visions, and as she waited, watching him, her eyes seemed to look through, not at him. Safe, warm at last, well-fed, Zayn was too blurry with sleep-longing to think of any convincing lie.

  ‘I saw a spirit crane. It met me on the lake shore and took me to the island for my vigil. Then later it kept coming back.’

  ‘Wonderful! Did it leave you a gift?’

  ‘No, but I was going to stay all night until the arrows started flying.’

  ‘Ah, damn Palindor! The crane would have given you a gift if only he and his Kazraks hadn’t got in the way.’

  ‘Got in the way? That’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘From now on, cranes are Bane for you,’ Ammadin went on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘You must never kill one – never, do you hear me? Don’t disturb a nest, either. Any crane you see means an omen, and you must greet them and speak to them. If you find a dead one, you must bury it properly.’

  ‘I promise, and I mean it, because that crane saved my life out there. It showed me a vision, too. My father came to me.’

  ‘His ghost? Is he dead?’

  ‘No. I guess it was just an image of him.’

  ‘That’s good enough. Did he have some advice for you?’

  ‘You don’t understand. My father hates me. I was nothing but one disappointment after the other.’

  Ammadin stared, visibly shocked. ‘Did he curse you?’ she said at last. ‘In the vision, I mean.’

  ‘No. He had the usual look on his face, like a man who’s just stepped in fresh horseshit with a bare foot.’

  ‘Why did he hate you?’

  ‘The Lord means everything to him. He kept our household as pure as he could make it, until I came along.’

  ‘Your people can be harsh, when it comes to your religion. It must be that book you read.’

  ‘He read it all the time, that’s for sure. He wanted me to memorize it, you see, and so I did.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Why would he get angry if you did what he wanted?’

  Zayn felt cold fear clutch him. He’d blundered, and badly. Back in the khanate that lapse might have led to his unmasking and, ultimately, his death
. Ammadin raised one eyebrow but waited for him to speak. He wanted a lie, could think of none.

  ‘Uh well,’ Zayn said. ‘I did it in a single afternoon. I mean, I read through it, and I knew it off by heart, all of it. I was eight, maybe.’

  ‘Well, so?’

  ‘Don’t you know what that means?’

  ‘No. I should think he’d have been proud of you, a child that young, laying up holy words in his heart.’

  ‘But –’ He hesitated.

  ‘But what?’ Ammadin leaned forward, staring into his eyes. ‘What does it mean, then?’

  Caught – how could he tell her? But how could he refuse? She waited patiently, her expression gentle, concerned.

  ‘Ah well,’ Zayn said at last. ‘It means I’m demon spawn, of course.’

  ‘What? That makes no sense at all.’

  ‘A memory like mine, it’s one of the twelve times twelve forbidden talents. So Father tried to exorcize the demon part of me, and when that didn’t work, he took me on quite a journey. We went to mosque after mosque, holy man after holy man. He was trying to find one who had the power to cure demon blood, you see. Finally I realized what he wanted, and so I pretended I was cured. But he never really trusted me.’

  ‘I still don’t –’

  ‘You must have heard of the forbidden talents.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Are they like Banes?’

  ‘Yes, exactly. But –’ Zayn caught himself just in time. Why was he babbling like this? The face of the man in his vision rose in his memory. For a moment he thought he saw it floating like a mask in front of him, a smug face, twisted and gloating over secrets held too long.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Ammadin rose to a kneel. ‘Are you going to throw up?’

  He shook his head. ‘The talents, they’re Bane, all right,’ he said. ‘But you’re born with them. If you have one, it marks you as demon spawn. Most fathers kill children like that, but I was his only son. So he didn’t. I learned to hide it.’

  ‘Demon spawn? What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Back in the old country, across the sea where we came from, there were demons. They were impure, and they had the forbidden talents. But some of our women slept with them and had children, impure children. That’s one reason we left the old country and came here, so we could be pure again.’

  ‘Are the demons supposed to have come with you?’

  ‘No. It’s just that those women must have hidden some of their children, you see, so the mullahs couldn’t kill them. And those children would have grown up and passed the taint on to their children, and so on. And now, people like me still have demon blood in us. My mother must have carried it.’

  Ammadin considered him for so long that he assumed she, like all the others, despised him. Finally she shook her head and spoke. ‘That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Demons can’t sire children. They don’t have bodies.’

  He gaped, knew his mouth was hanging open like some idiot child’s, tried to find words, and realized at length that he was shaking.

  ‘Don’t you believe me?’ Ammadin said.

  ‘Of course I do. The mullahs and my father – they always warned us against demons, the gennies, they called them. They could look like real people, but they weren’t. They were spirits, and their bodies were just illusions.’

  ‘Well, then, how is one of these illusions supposed to get a woman pregnant?’

  He could only stare at her. He wanted to say ‘of course they can’t, you’re right, it’s ridiculous,’ but his mouth refused to form the words. He hadn’t seen. Why hadn’t he seen? He hadn’t dared to see. What if he’d tried this piece of logic on his father? The old man might have killed him. He’d come close to killing his tainted son as it was, with his beatings and periods of forced starvation.

  ‘What a waste!’ Ammadin went on. ‘Your people could use a memory like yours. They’ve got so many laws and prayers.’

  He nodded. ‘Look, Spirit Rider, Wise One, if I’m not demon spawn, then what am I?’

  ‘A man like any other, I suppose, with an odd turn of mind. Some men are good with a bow; others can’t shoot to save their lives but ride like they’re half-horse. Some men would forget their own names if they lived alone; others can remember every horse their wives have sold to the Kazraks in the last thirty years.’

  ‘But the forbidden talents –’

  ‘– are on some list one of your holy men made up a long time ago. I have no idea why he did it or why he put having an amazing memory on it, but I think he was born a few pages short of a holy book, if you take my meaning.’

  Zayn laughed, softly at first, then louder, realized that his eyes were filling with tears, but the laughter kept coming, making him tremble until Ammadin reached over, grabbed him by the shoulders, and shook him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Wise One.’ He was gasping for breath. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

  ‘It’s the shock. You’ve spent your life guarding this evil secret, haven’t you? Wondering what would happen if someone knew?’

  ‘Just that. Yes.’

  ‘And now I tell you that it’s not evil and shouldn’t be a secret. Why wouldn’t you be shocked?’

  ‘I see your point, yes.’ Zayn managed to smile. ‘I wish I could go back to the Mistlands. I never thought I’d say it, but I want to see more.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous. I haven’t forgotten about those other voices you heard out there. Apanador thinks that we should ride east. Maybe we can throw them off your trail.’

  ‘I’ve brought you nothing but trouble, haven’t I? It’s good of you to ride just for me.’

  ‘And wouldn’t we ride for anyone in the comnee? Zayn, you belong to us now.’

  Ammadin spoke so quietly that Zayn felt his lies eating at him, simply because her words were perfectly true: part of him would always belong to Apanador’s comnee. He wanted to wash the lie away, to warn her that he’d have to leave the Tribes to fulfil his duty to the Great Khan. But the Chosen – his vow – he could say nothing. Ammadin laid a maternal hand on his arm.

  ‘You’re exhausted. Go to sleep. We can talk in the morning.’

  When he looked at her hand lying on his arm, Zayn shuddered, remembering the way it had dripped fire.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Ammadin said.

  ‘Well, it’s just the light. I mean, the light you had on your hand when you met me. I’m not used to strong magic.’

  ‘That?’ She paused, laughing at him. ‘It’s the juice of a plant. It only grows in the Mistlands, or you would have seen it before this. When you crush it, the sticky stuff inside glows for quite a while before it fades. Look! I wiped it off onto a rag and stuck it on the ridge pole.’

  When Zayn looked, he blushed. The rag was one of those that he used to wash pots and bowls, and here he’d been so sure that the light sprang from magic that he’d never recognized it.

  Later, when he was rolled up in his blankets, Zayn remembered that he’d failed to find his true name. He knew that he should tell Ammadin, that in fact he should get up and go find her immediately, but exhaustion took him over, and he slept.

  Zayn was well on his way back to the lake shore by the time Warkannan found the bodies. The captain was about half a mile away from Tareev, keeping in contact with Arkazo by croaking like a swamp lizard while he fought the muck and the stinking water. When he heard Arkazo calling, a frantic little string of signals, Warkannan called back and splashed his way through an empty stretch of lake and mist. He finally found him crouched on a muddy hummock.

  ‘I heard someone scream,’ Arkazo said. ‘Over to the left.’

  It was either a good omen or the worst one in the world. For some minutes, Warkannan sent lizard cries through the mist, but no one answered. He nocked an arrow in his bow, told Arkazo to do the same, and set off in the rough direction of the scream. Although he and Arkazo kept calling, they heard nothing from Palindor or Tareev. At last, looming in the mist, Warkannan saw a long rocky stretc
h of islet, and on it, two dark mounds.

  ‘Stay here and cover me until I call for you.’

  Holding the bow out of water, Warkannan splashed through the waist-deep lake. Constantly he turned his head, looking for a possible enemy, but he saw only a grey crane, perched on one pink leg amongst the tall rushes. Then, from a few feet away, he saw the bodies. Rasping like a fly-lizard struck him as sacrilege.

  ‘Arkazo! Get over here!’

  Without a word, Arkazo came splashing through the water. Together they climbed up the rocky bank.

  They lay in a pool of blood, Palindor with his spine efficiently severed, Tareev dead from a Tribal arrow. In his shock, it took Warkannan a moment to realize that Palindor’s bow was gone. Somehow Zayn had killed him with only a knife, taken the bow, and started a hunt of his own.

  ‘He’s one of the Chosen, all right,’ Warkannan said. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

  Arkazo made no reply. He was crouched down beside Tareev, his hand on his dead friend’s face, staring into Tareev’s unseeing eyes as if he could bring him back to life by force of will.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kaz,’ Warkannan said, as gently as he could. ‘I know it’s hard, but the only thing you can do for him now is to swear vengeance.’

  Arkazo looked up, his mouth set, his eyes blind.

  ‘Come on now,’ Warkannan said. ‘There’s a dangerous man out there in the mists with a bow. We can’t do a thing for the khan’s cause if we’re dead.’

  ‘We can’t just leave him here.’

  ‘We’ve got to.’

  Arkazo shook his head in a stubborn no. Warkannan left him, grabbed Palindor’s corpse by the shoulders, and dragged it to the edge of the islet. When he slung him in, Palindor sank into the dark water that would be the only grave he’d ever have. With a long cry of mourning, the crane flapped up from the rushes and flew away. When Warkannan returned for Tareev, Arkazo got up, his hand on his sword hilt, and barred his way. Warkannan slapped Arkazo across the face so hard that the boy staggered back.