Snare

by Katharine Kerr

  ‘No, not at all. But after all, we’ve had these discussions before.’

  ‘Many times. I’d just hoped for something –’ Loy caught herself just in time. ‘Something different for her.’

  ‘Something better, you mean.’

  Loy winced. ‘Oh, who’s to say what’s better? You’ve certainly got more of God left than I do of history.’

  ‘It’s impossible to lose God entirely.’ Mother Superior was smiling a calm, round smile. ‘Perhaps that’s what our exile here is supposed to teach us.’

  ‘Perhaps so. I have some awful news for you, by the way. One of our retired loremasters spotted Yarl Soutan in Bredanee. Apparently he’s riding north.’

  ‘How absolutely horrible!’

  ‘I was thinking that I shouldn’t tell Rozi.’

  ‘No, of course not. If for some reason she has to know, I’ll do it. She’s placed her spiritual welfare in my hands, after all.’

  Mother Superior looked briefly, ever so briefly, smug; then concern reappeared in her eyes.

  ‘I see,’ Loy said. ‘Well, good evening. I’d better get home. I’ll be meeting with the commiz tomorrow.’

  Loy walked away, waved once, kept walking until she’d left the compound behind and any chance of being heard with it.

  ‘You sanctimonious bitch!’ she muttered aloud. ‘You rotten sanctimonious bitch!’

  She marched on home in something of a better mood.

  Master Zhoc had arranged Loy’s meeting with the local Commiz duh Trib, Peer Duhmars, for late afternoon, when her classes for the day – indeed, for the entire spring session – had finished. Against the afternoon heat, the master’s big office was pleasantly cool, a dark, panelled room with glass in both windows. Bookshelves lined two of the walls. Loy found Peer Duhmars there ahead of her, sitting across from the master in a stiff-backed wooden chair that matched his posture, while Zhoc, thin and almost frail, with his grey hair and huge, dark eyes, lounged in a leather chair behind his massive desk. The commiz, heavy-set, his face square and florid, nodded her way.

  Loy took a chair half-way between them. Duhmars reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a long roll of rushi.

  ‘I have the warrant all drawn up,’ the commiz said. ‘All it needs is your signature, Mada Millou. Then I can file it with the Council.’

  ‘Thank you, Mizzou Duhmars.’ Loy took the proffered rushi and leaned back to read it. In the long welter of legal language certain phrases stood out as if written in blood: assault and battery, forced intercourse, sodomy, lacerations, attempted intimidation of witnesses. She read fast and tried to avoid them. Finally she found the proper place for her signature as complainant.

  ‘Sign it with your full title,’ the commiz said.

  ‘I intended to.’ Loy stood up and glanced at Zhoc’s desk, normally a sea of books and rushi. An inkwell and pen stood ready in a cleared corner. As she signed, she was wishing that she were a real sorcerer like in the ancient stories, who could put a curse on Yarl, perhaps one that would make his testicles wither away with great pain. For a moment she stood waving the rushi to let the ink dry, while both Zhoc and Duhmars watched her with eyes that displayed the proper degree of concern. To them it was a serious matter; she knew that, she was grateful, but she also knew that neither shared her rage. She handed the warrant back to Duhmars.

  ‘I’ll be glad to help you in any way I can,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you.’ Duhmars stood and concentrated on rolling up the warrant. ‘When it comes to trial, you’ll be called, of course.’

  ‘Good.’

  Loy sat back down and watched Zhoc escort the provo to the door. Duhmars paused with his hand on the jamb.

  ‘I’ll remember what you told me about that third Kazrak,’ Duhmars said. ‘Damned strange thing!’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Zhoc said.

  Zhoc closed the door and walked back, slowly, to his desk. He sank into his chair with a long sigh.

  ‘You look tired,’ Loy said.

  ‘I haven’t been sleeping well,’ Zhoc said. ‘Having Yarl around does that to me.’

  ‘Me, too, actually. What’s this about a third Kazrak?’

  ‘It might be very good news. Onree thinks it is.’ Zhoc straightened up and rummaged through the rushis on his desk. ‘Ah, here we are. Yarl manages to make enemies wherever he goes, the charming fellow. There’s another Kazrak – his name is Zayn Hassan – following him, and as far as Onree can tell, this Hassan might rid us of the man once and for all if he catches him. Apparently Yarl tried to have him murdered.’

  ‘I’ll wish Hassan the best of luck, then.’

  ‘As will I.’ Zhoc tossed the rushi onto the clutter, then leaned back in his chair. ‘It’s bad enough that Yarl’s in the Cantons, but bringing Kazraks with him? I suppose they’re heading to Burgunee. There’s that other Kazrak there, the one Yarl was so thick with.’

  ‘What other Kazrak? What is this with Kazraks? All of a sudden they’re crawling out of the walls! Or wait – you mean that exiled leader, don’t you? The khan?’

  ‘Yes, Jezro Khan.’

  ‘But why is Yarl bringing them?’ Loy felt suddenly weary. ‘I don’t trust Kazraks, I really don’t. I’m just glad that the Landfall Treaty set them up on one side of the Rift and us on the other.’

  ‘So were the Settlers.’ Zhoc flashed her a wry smile, then let it fade. ‘I wonder what Yarl’s been telling them?’

  ‘Probably the exact same thing he told his followers here.’

  ‘That we should be trying to go “home”, as he keeps calling it? Probably so.’ Zhoc leaned back in his chair and looked up as if he could see the galaxy through the ceiling. ‘Return to the stars! Doesn’t he realize that if it were possible the guild would have figured it out by now? How can he not have realized?’

  ‘You told him often enough.’ It was Loy’s turn for the wry smile. ‘If the original Shipfolk couldn’t find their way back, how are we supposed to?’

  ‘Exactly. We should have realized it early on, that he was going mad, I mean. It’s generally considered madness, at any rate, when someone becomes obsessed with doing the impossible.’ Zhoc shook his head. ‘I feel it deeply, that I failed to reach him. Can’t he see how destructive it is, offering people false hopes?’

  ‘I don’t suppose he really cares. He wants to act the part of a messiah and have a whole crowd of people telling him how wonderful he is.’

  ‘He had something for everyone, didn’t he? The young people loved the very idea of all those gadgets, all those machines. And the old people – well, I can see the appeal myself.’ Zhoc sat up and swivelled his chair around to smile at her. ‘A hundred and twenty years of life guaranteed, and in perfect health. Who wouldn’t want it?’

  ‘The Tribes still have it. The health part, anyway, and if they hadn’t chosen such rough lives, who knows how long they’d live?’

  ‘It’s their ancestors who did the choosing. I wonder if the descendants would continue to choose it, if they knew.’

  ‘Good question. Probably unanswerable, too.’

  ‘Probably, yes. And not as important, ultimately, as why they stay so damned healthy. I’m envious, I’ll admit it. They’re just not built like us. Good God, the way they drink! One glass of that keese, and I’d have to lie down, but they knock it back all day.’

  ‘Yes, their metabolism – you’re right, they’re not like us. And they’re not like the other Inborn, really. If we could find the Settlers’ records, we might come closer to learning why.’

  ‘Just so.’ Zhoc shook his head in irritation. ‘If. I wish they hadn’t stored so much data in N’Dosha. There has to be some rational explanation, and thanks to the filthy ChaMeech we’ll never learn it.’

  ‘If the records are all lost, anyway. Everyone’s afraid of going to find out, so they might as well be.’

  ‘Yarl of course wanted to. I got so sick of him pestering me for funding.’ Zhoc paused, looking grim. ‘You know what my worst fear is? That Y
arl isn’t a charlatan, that he really believes in his grand scheme. If he does, he could cause a great deal of trouble for everyone.’

  ‘He already has, hasn’t he? What –’

  ‘Those Kazraks.’ Zhoc leaned forward, his eyes urgent. ‘What if he wants to convince the Kazraks to come search for the lost ships?’

  Loy felt herself turn cold. ‘Trouble,’ she said. ‘I see what you mean.’

  After she left the master’s office, Loy finished posting the student grades, gave their papers to the guild clerk in case anyone wanted them back, then locked up her office for the recess. She hated holidays, when she had nothing to do but sit around her cottage and worry about Rozi. You should start a new research project, she told herself. The utter futility of the thought nearly made her weep. She had studied the Landfall Treaty for twenty years now, and what had she learned? How knowledge evaporated like water in the sun when a people, a culture, were dying, how myth sprang up like purple grass in a rose garden to strangle truth, and how well-meaning people had decided that myth was healthier than truth.

  Loy left the building and went home, where a stack of books, better than any chemical anodyne, waited for her. She would lie on the couch, she decided, and lose herself in ancient works: classics of other times, other worlds, and other stars.

  Before they left Leen, Ammadin insisted they take their horses to a blacksmith to have them freshly shod. Neither of them knew what the roads ahead were like. The road that ran north from Leen was bad enough, an ancient, dead-straight stripe of crumbling grey sponge through the fields and villages. No one actually travelled on it; on each side ran lanes of hard-packed dirt, where the farmers drove their wagons and travellers rode their horses or walked, pulling goods behind them in two-wheeled wicker carts.

  By then the summer season had arrived, hot and parched, when the pale sun turned merciless and fended off all rain. Out in the fields water gleamed in irrigation ditches. Whenever they crossed a bridge, Zayn saw a variety of contraptions – wheels lined with buckets, wooden sluices, pumps – sucking or lifting the precious water out of the river below and delivering it to the gold and scarlet fields. Ammadin insisted on stopping often to rest and water the horses. Zayn never objected, even though he knew that Warkannan was gaining ground, that he would be pushing his men and mounts both now that he knew one of the Chosen was heading for Jezro Khan.

  During that ride north Zayn took his love affair with Ammadin like a drug. His feeling for her – his honest affection, his gratitude, the sexual pleasure they shared – drowned his thoughts and changed his memories of the Chosen, of Kazrajistan, even of his days in the border cavalry, into stories he’d once heard someone tell. Those events no longer mattered, as long as he and Ammadin could ride together during the sun-drenched days and lie down together at night.

  But all too soon they crossed the border into the Canton of Dordan, and another day’s ride brought them to the little town of Lasko, a scatter of white houses tucked among the gaudy fields and shaded by ancient oaks. There was no hohte, but they did find a wine shop, a pleasant place with a true-wood floor, tables and chairs woven from maroon rushes, and a long bar, also of true-wood, that stood before a wall covered with pottery jars and glass bottles, all tipped onto their sides in elaborate wicker racks. The proprietor, a stout woman wearing a heavy white apron over her smock and trousers, told them that she had a small barn out in back.

  ‘You can sleep in the hay loft for a couple of vrans,’ she said. ‘Not much hay up there, though, and don’t you go starting any fires.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Zayn said. ‘It’s too hot for that.’

  ‘You’re right, aren’t you? Go get your horses in out of the sun.’

  Zayn tended the horses while Ammadin disappeared round back of the barn – scanning, he assumed – and when she returned she confirmed his assumption.

  ‘Warkannan is right at the edge of my crystal’s range,’ she said. ‘That means he’s a good long way ahead.’

  ‘Well, not much I can do about that,’ Zayn said.

  ‘I know. You don’t look particularly worried.’

  ‘I’ve been learning from you. If my quest takes me to Jezro, well, then it will, and if it doesn’t, it’s not meant to.’

  Ammadin considered this seriously. As always, she was carrying her saddlebags slung over one shoulder. Away from the comnee she never left her crystals out of arm’s reach.

  ‘I suppose that’s true,’ Ammadin said at last. ‘But it’s possible to fail a quest, you know. Usually the quester fails out of cowardice, but I can’t imagine you being a coward, so if you’re on the wrong path, it has to be for some other reason.’

  ‘Such as, maybe I never should have taken the quest on. Maybe I should have just stayed with the comnee and let –’

  ‘ – the Chosen find you and kill you.’

  Zayn scowled at her.

  ‘Well, that’s what you always say, isn’t it? If someone would only kill you, then all your troubles would be over.’

  The justice of it stung. He turned and took a step away. He heard her follow, then felt her hands on his shoulders, stroking him.

  ‘I don’t want to see you dead, Zayn.’ Her voice had turned soft. ‘I don’t know, no one can know what the gods have in store for you, but please, try to stay alive?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘There’s no of course about it.’

  He shrugged, shook her hands off, and walked a few more steps away. Standing in the cool shade of the barn as he was, the sunlight outside the door looked to him like a wall of white fire, and for the briefest of moments he was afraid to walk into it. With a muttered curse he turned back to Ammadin.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘All right, I’ll do my best to stay alive. I promise. How’s that?’

  ‘That’s fine.’ She was smiling at him. ‘If you died, I’d have to mourn you, and I don’t want to cut all my hair off.’

  ‘Heaven forbid!’ He managed to smile in return. ‘I’ve never tasted wine. Want to go try some?’

  ‘I thought you Kazraks weren’t supposed to.’

  ‘By all the laws of my religion I’m damned already. I might as well get drunk if I feel like it.’ He’d meant it as a joke, but he could hear the bitter twist in his voice. ‘Sorry. I guess I’m just tired. Let’s go.’

  Outside, a cloud of dust like smoke drifted from the road. Big wagons were trundling past; Zayn counted six of them, each drawn by four heavy horses. Two of the wagons looked more like moving houses; their wooden sides were about eight feet high, and he could see the peaks of roofs. On this pair hung big banners, announcing ‘The Recallers of Roon’. The word, Recaller, brought back the memory with it, of the small boy crouched on the cold tile floor. Caught between two times Zayn watched until the last wagon passed, and the dust began to settle with one last swirl over the grey roadway.

  ‘Zayn?’ Ammadin said. ‘Are you all right?’

  With a toss of his head Zayn suppressed the memory. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Just tired.’

  The wine shop stood empty of patrons. At the counter the stout woman was polishing glass goblets with a piece of white cloth.

  ‘Something I meant to ask you,’ Zayn said. ‘Does this road run straight through to Burgunee?’

  ‘Not exactly straight, no.’ She held up a goblet and inspected it. ‘After you leave Sarla, the road goes north, but there’s a fork a few miles out of town. They both look wrong.’ She smiled and set the goblet down. ‘One runs north after a little detour, and that’s the Burgunee road. The other heads east to where N’Dosha used to be. You better ask in town when you get there, just to make sure.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll do that.’

  Zayn ordered wine randomly, pointing at a couple of glass bottles, handing over the coins she asked for. Once she had the money, she pulled the corks out of the bottles with a spiral of metal wire protruding from a handle. Zayn glanced back and saw Ammadin sitting at a table near the open door. He took the bottles an
d a pair of empty glasses over, set them down, then pulled up a chair opposite her.

  ‘I heard you asking about the roads,’ Ammadin said. ‘Could she tell you?’

  ‘Yes, she sure did. Exactly where are you meeting Water Woman? Did she ever make up her mind?’

  ‘Yesterday morning, finally. Out in what used to be N’Dosha, but not far from the Dordan border, she said, there’s some kind of monument. She called it the “white cliff with pictures”. She says there’s an old road that will take me there. Why? Is she wrong?’

  ‘No. It’s just that your road’s going to leave mine right after Sarla.’

  ‘That’s not good news.’ Ammadin frowned, considering. ‘You’ll have a ways to travel, and I won’t be able to hide you from the sorcerer. You’re right to worry. You’ll have to be very careful from then on.’

  Zayn picked up a bottle and concentrated on filling their glasses with pale yellow wine.

  ‘Zayn?’ Ammadin said. ‘Something’s really wrong. Please tell me.’

  ‘Well, hell! In a couple of days we won’t be riding together. Won’t you even miss me?’

  Her utter surprise caught him like a slap across the face. Just lie, Ammi, he thought. Go ahead and lie, and I’ll make myself believe it.

  ‘Miss you?’ Ammadin said at last. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Oh never mind! Here, have a goddamned glass of wine.’

  He shoved a glass across the table towards her, but she let it sit. ‘I’ve hurt you somehow,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, I was hoping you liked having me around.’

  ‘What? Of course I do. But we’re both on quest.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But –’

  ‘But what? Do I love you? Isn’t that what you really want to know?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is. I know it’s a stupid question.’

  ‘It’s only stupid because we’re both riding quests. If we were back on the grass, it wouldn’t be.’

  ‘All right. Suppose I wait till we get back there and ask it again.’

  ‘That’s fair.’ She picked up her glass and saluted him with it. ‘You do that.’