Snare

by Katharine Kerr

  Zayn laughed. ‘All right.’ He slipped the imp’s chain over his head and settled it inside his shirt. ‘Thank you. This is very good of you.’

  ‘Anything to help you find Soutan.’

  Loy led them down a narrow gravelled path to another fence, another gate, where a young woman dressed in white, her hair smoothed back under a blue scarf, stood waiting. She waved and smiled so confidently that Ammadin could guess that she wasn’t the daughter.

  ‘Hullo, Taymah,’ Loy said. ‘Will Rozi talk with the spirit rider?’

  ‘Yes, she will.’ Taymah hesitated, staring at Zayn. ‘Uh, I don’t know about –’

  ‘He’s a zhundar,’ Loy said smoothly, ‘working in disguise to track Yarl Soutan down.’

  ‘Oh, how wonderful!’ Taymar gave Zayn a big grin. ‘But I’ll run on ahead and warn her you’re here. She’s in the chapel, Loy, and men can go in there. Give me a head start.’ She glanced at Ammadin. ‘No one can be kept from the word of God, you see, but the rest of our buildings are off-limits to men.’

  ‘That makes perfect sense to me,’ Ammadin said. ‘I was a girl myself once.’

  Taymah giggled and ran off.

  Rozi met them at the chapel door, a pretty girl, as thin and fragile as a blade of grass, Ammadin thought. Her long, dark hair fell free to the waist of her white dress, but around her neck she wore a gold Star of David on a chain. They all stood behind the last row of chairs in the back of the chapel; Rozi seemed disinclined to allow them to come further into her place of safety. From the first Ammadin could smell how completely indrawn she was, wrapped in the scent of fear, though as faint as the grass-smell of old straw. Around most young people Ammadin could see a reddish glow of heat energy, but not around Rozi.

  ‘I wanted you to meet the spirit rider, darling,’ Loy said. ‘Don’t mind Mr Hassan. He’s a zhundar on special assignment.’

  Rozi’s dark eyes flicked towards Zayn, then back to Ammadin. ‘Hullo,’ she said.

  ‘Will you sit down with me, Rozi?’ Ammadin said. ‘Just over there, say. Not far from your mother at all.’

  Rozi followed in unenthused obedience. For a moment Ammadin sat with her saddlebags in her lap and considered the girl. ‘Do you have bad dreams still?’ Ammadin said at last.

  ‘How did you know I had bad dreams?’

  ‘It’s part of my work to know things.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice dropped. ‘I keep dreaming he’s choking me again.’ The fear-smell billowed around her, pure of any taint of lying.

  ‘I’ve made you a talisman.’ Ammadin unlaced one saddlebag. ‘It has plains magic, magic from the Mistlands. Have you heard of those?’

  This brought a brief smile to Rozi’s thin face. Ammadin handed her a small vial of oil, made from the crushed leaves of a glow plant, and a piece of blue trade cloth, tied around a chip of green and white travertine.

  ‘Keep these under your pillow,’ Ammadin said. ‘When you wake up from a bad dream, put a drop of oil onto the cloth. You’ll see a small star of hope. Pray to your god to take the dreams away. By the time all the oil’s gone, the dreams will be too.’

  Rozi hesitated, sceptical, then smiled and took them. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It’ll be something for me to do about them.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it exactly. You’ll be able to drain all the power out of the dreams once you see that you have power, too.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She twined her long, pale fingers around the vial and the chip. ‘I’ll keep them with me.’

  In a flood of thanks from Loy and Taymah both, they left the chapel. Ammadin glanced back before the door closed and saw Rozi walking gravely down the aisle, her eyes fixed on the golden cross on the far wall, the talisman clutched in her hands. How much good it would do her, Ammadin couldn’t say, but some would be better than none.

  Hand in hand Ammadin and Zayn walked back to the hohte. Neither of them spoke as they made their way through the lighted streets of the town. She was aware of him pressing closer and closer against her, of his hand tightening on hers. Will I miss him? she thought. In my blankets, certainly. But the rest of the time? He was as wounded as Loy’s daughter, in his own way, and she had given him all the help she could. If he was going to heal, he would have to go among the men from his past and see if indeed, he could ever make himself whole again.

  She remembered Yannador, telling her that a spirit rider could only travel so far with a person who needed healing. In the end, they would have to heal themselves with the medicines the spirit rider had given them, or it would be no true healing at all. She could only pray that she had given him all the medicine he needed for his spirit, broken so early and so repeatedly.

  When they returned to the hohte, without a word he pulled her into his arms. He kissed her face, her lips, the side of her neck, and she could feel him trembling in a kind of desperate desire, as if by making love to her he could truly meld them together and never leave. Yet, although she enjoyed his lovemaking as much as always, already in her mind she had left him. Afterwards she lay wrapped tight in his arms, but she was thinking of contacting Water Woman to tell her that she’d be staying in Sarla for one more day.

  Loy woke early, then spent an hour rushing around her cottage and hiding everything that looked the least bit technological, even though the effort struck her as silly. If Ammadin thought a lightwand drew its power from spirits, she would doubtless believe the same thing about a spice grinder or an electric kettle. Most of her house had sunk to the same level as the rest of the Cantons, anyway. She cooked over wood and lighted candles against the dark to spare the guild’s scant supply of solar accus.

  Ammadin arrived not long before the observation grid was due over the horizon. The Riders, Loy reminded herself. Call them the Riders. Ammadin wore her saurskin cloak over her shirt and leather pants, and she carried her gaudy red and white saddlebags. When Loy showed her in to the tiny living room, Ammadin spent a moment looking around. She pointed to a picture on the mantelpiece, a head-and-shoulders drawing of a young man with straight, dark hair and pale eyes.

  ‘Rozi’s father?’ Ammadin said.

  ‘Yes, his name was Oskar. Oskar Vallohn. He drowned swimming in the river, a silly freak accident.’

  ‘That’s very sad.’

  ‘It was, yes. It was twelve years ago, but I still miss him.’

  Ammadin nodded and looked over the next set of shelves. ‘You have books, a lot of books.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Most of my salary goes for books.’

  Ammadin blinked at her.

  ‘A salary is the money the Loremasters Guild gives me for teaching.’

  ‘Oh. The Riders will be overhead soon.’

  ‘Yes. We can take our crystals out to the garden.’

  Garden was a fancy name for Loy’s patch of half-dead green grass, native species weeds, and three rows of vegetables, but it did offer a table and chairs out in the sun. Ammadin took off her cloak, folded it carefully, and placed it on the table. She brought out her crystals from the saddlebags and laid them on the cloak – to feed, she told Loy. Loy had already carried out her multi-transmit, multi-receive unit, an oval crystal about twelve inches along one axis and four on the other, flat on one side to fit into its true-wood support case. Ammadin’s eyes widened at the sight.

  ‘That’s a wonderful crystal,’ she said. ‘Did your master give that to you?’

  ‘Yes, in a way. It was my mother’s. She was a sorcerer too, and so was my grandmother.’

  ‘Does it bother you to have Rozi serve the temple instead?’

  ‘Yes, it bothers me a lot. Before Yarl hurt her, she was going to go to university up in Kors. It’s the most important school in the Cantons.’ Loy felt like screaming in frustration. ‘They were going to let her attend for free and everything.’

  ‘And now she won’t go?’

  Loy nodded, not trusting her voice. It’s Rozi’s life, she told herself. Not mine, not mine.

  ‘This church interests me,’ Ammadin went
on. ‘Zayn says you worship the same god the Kazraks do, but with a different book.’

  ‘Some of us worship that god. Not everyone.’ Loy remembered that the Tribes fully believed in their own gods and worked at keeping the scorn out of her voice. ‘The religion goes back a real long way, to the early days of the Cantons. The Kazraks were happy and prospering and having lots of children over in their khanate, but in the Cantons people were miserable, absolutely fixated on the country they’d come from and lost. From what I’ve read I’d say that the colony was in real danger of dying out. Some of the Cantonneurs even converted to Islam and went to live in the khanate.’

  ‘That’s interesting. Did they marry Kazraks and have children?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure they did.’ The question struck Loy as odd, but she couldn’t quite figure out why. ‘So the rest of the colonists decided to give the Kazraki god a try. Hey, it worked for the Kazraks, didn’t it?’

  Ammadin laughed, nodding her agreement.

  ‘But my ancestors wanted to worship in their own way,’ Loy continued. ‘So they dug out a holy book that their ancestors had believed in. It really does seem to give a lot of people comfort and the hope they need, somehow, to stop brooding about the past and the things we’ve lost and move on to what we have.’

  ‘That makes me think their god must be real, then.’

  ‘Well, I’d say it’s the believing that’s real.’

  ‘Oh?’ Ammadin’s expression hovered on the edge of a smile. ‘Not the god working for his people?’

  Loy realized that they were treading on dangerous ground, should Ammadin want to discuss her own gods. Fortunately, the observation grid saved her by rising over the horizon. Two crystals chimed, hers and one of Ammadin’s.

  ‘They’re up,’ Loy said. ‘The Riders, I mean. How shall we do this?’

  ‘Long Voice knows how to contact Water Woman,’ Ammadin said. ‘Let me wake him.’

  Together Loy and Ammadin fussed over the crystals until Loy’s powerful unit managed to lock onto Water Woman’s position. In a pale green glow the image of the female ChaMeech appeared in the centre of the oval. She was sitting haunched in purple grass, her blue and white skirt spread out around her, with two naked grey ChaMeech haunched nearby. In her pseudo-hands she held a spherical crystal. The image, this melding of alien and human, took Loy’s breath for a long moment.

  Ammadin Witchwoman, you are there not there? Water Woman’s voice came in clearly from the receiver embedded in Loy’s transmit. Loy was shocked at how clearly she formed the Tekspeak words.

  ‘I’m here,’ Ammadin said. ‘But I can hear you twice.’

  I understand-not, Water Woman said. I speak only once.

  Ammadin shook her head as if something pained her. ‘I hear your voice like a spirit voice, in my skull, and then I hear your voice coming out of Loy’s crystal.’

  Loy turned towards her in utter surprise, but Water Woman spoke before she could ask a question.

  I understand-now. Ammadin witchwoman, you know not know where the Karshaks be?

  ‘In Burgunee Canton,’ Ammadin said. ‘The last I saw of them, Soutan and his Kazraks were going into a big house near the Burgunee-Dordan border. Another Kazrak lives in that house. His name is Jezro, and Soutan and his friends want to take him back to the Kazrak khanate.’

  Good. I hope-now they go far away and come-not here. There be one Karshak on the road still, not far north of Sarla. He wear-now device so I see-not him, but Sibyl have power to see him. Sibyl see-always where us witchpeople see-not.

  ‘That Kazrak’s Zayn. He’s my friend, my very dear friend. Is he in danger?’

  No danger. The image of Water Woman frowned down at the crystal she was holding. Sibyl ask, this third Karshak, he go not go to join the other Karshaks?

  ‘I don’t know. He may join them, he may kill at least one of them. He may kill Soutan and not one of the Kazraks. I honestly don’t know what he’ll do when he gets there. Neither does he.’

  This be very strange.

  Loy couldn’t have agreed more.

  ‘Zayn is very strange,’ Ammadin said. ‘But where are you now? Are we still meeting at the white cliff?’

  We meet-next-soon at the white cliff, yes. Loy Sorcerer, you are there not there?

  ‘I’m here, Water Woman.’ Loy leaned forward into the image capture range of the transmit, then realized that Water Woman could only hear, not see them with her single crystal. ‘I’m honoured you would speak with me.’

  That be a strange saying from a Canton woman. You hate-not us for what happen-then-long-time east of here to your fifth Canton?

  It took Loy a moment to decipher her utterance. ‘No, I don’t hate you,’ Loy said. ‘You weren’t born then.’

  The image of Water Woman stamped a foot on the ground. Good, Water Woman went on. I talk-then at early dawn this-day with Sibyl. Sibyl say-then, invite Loy Sorcerer, see if she come not come with Ammadin Witchwoman.

  ‘Wonderful!’ Loy blurted. ‘I was hoping you’d ask.’

  As soon as she said it, Loy could hardly breathe. What the hell have you got yourself into? But she knew that if she backed out of this ridiculous adventure now, she would face a life of bitter regret.

  So, Loy Sorcerer, Water Woman said, you come-next-soon to meet Sibyl?

  ‘Oh yes,’ Loy said. ‘I’ll come. I need to tell my guildmaster and find a horse, but I’ll come.’

  Part Three

  The Damned

  Singer: Chursavva Great Mother might have killed them all.

  Chorus: The H’mai stood within reach of her servants’ spears.

  Singer: Chursavva Great Mother let them live.

  Chorus: She showed them mercy and mild ways.

  Singer: How do we sing of Chursavva Great Mother?

  Chorus: We curse her name and piss on her memory.

  From Folklore of the Chof, Volume II

  ed. Yasmini Al-Norravvachiri

  Before he left Sarla, Zayn asked about the road north. The maiderdee at the hohte looked weary and suggested he just buy a map in the college bookshop, a purchase that turned out to be well worth a silver vran. Where the ancient north road split into two, a few miles out of Sarla, Zayn took the Burgunee fork, which angled deceptively west to skirt a little lake, as round as a cup of water half-buried in sand, before heading north-east. That first day he travelled on the main road and spent the first night on the floor of a village wine shop without worrying about who might see him. He was assuming that Warkannan and Jezro would be long gone once he reached Burgunee and that, therefore, there was no particular reason to hide. He did make an effort, however, to keep his imp fed on sunlight. Soutan had got the better of him once; he refused to let it happen again.

  At noon on the second day he stopped beside an irrigation ditch in the shade of a scant stand of pink hill-bamboid. The brown water flowed in silence and rippled around the muzzles of his horses as they drank, switching their tails to chase black midges away. When he refastened the bits of their bridles, he noticed that horse sweat and road dust had stained his quest marker, particularly the feathers. The sight bit his conscience. Riding so openly meant failing the spirit of his quest.

  In the shade of the pink bamboid he ate stale bread and washed it down with wine. He could see the map on his mental screen clearly enough to study its details. From talking with people he’d met along the road, he knew that the Dookis Marya lived some five miles west of Kors, the main town in Burgunee, in something called a manor house. Apparently her wealth had single-handedly lifted the villages and farms around her out of poverty. Everyone told him how admired she was, how grateful the citizens were for her generosity, how sorry they were that she seemed to have gone mad. No one quite knew what form this madness took, but she had turned into a recluse, surrounded by bodyguards. Zayn cared nothing one way or the other about the dookis, but the bodyguards mattered.

  The estate appeared on the map as a dot. Nearby he saw a triangle, marking a farming village. If
a Kazrak turned up in the village, some villager or other would doubtless run right to the bodyguards to report it. He would have to circle round, avoiding the village, camping in the wild country that the map so thoughtfully marked for him, then make his final approach on foot. By then he was enough of a comnee man to worry about the horses. If he left them tethered and then never came back for them, they’d die of thirst or starve. He would turn them into some farmer’s pasture at night, he decided, a gift from fortune should he die trying to honour his oath.

  From that noontide on he rode as an assassin, staying on country lanes, travelling at night when the roads allowed, and avoiding other human beings as much as possible. Late on his fourth day out from Sarla, he crossed into Burgunee and arrived at a patch of wild land where an abandoned barn offered shelter. In the shade of a pair of fountain trees he dismounted and walked over to inspect it.

  Someone else had camped there, and fairly recently at that. In soft ground near a tiny stream, he found hoofprints; there were horse droppings scattered in the grass. In the barn itself he could clearly see where at least two, more likely three, persons had disturbed ancient dust.

  ‘Well, look at all this,’ he said aloud. ‘One of Idres’ camps, I bet.’

  The irony of it made him smile. He decided to camp there as well, as if by some kind of sympathetic magic he would make a link between Warkannan and himself.

  After he had tended his horses, Zayn set off on foot to walk a wide circle around the campsite, just as a precaution. He was looking for nothing in particular, but he found something startling: a Settler artifact. Made of smooth-seeming flexstone, the sphere sat half-buried in the earth. About four feet in diameter, it rocked slightly when he touched it, as if it sat in a socket under the earth. When he shoved it with some force, it swivelled in a quarter-turn and squealed, as if some mechanism needed oiling. When he was dropping off to sleep he had what might have been only a peculiar dream. He could hear footsteps and voices under him, as if he lay on the floor of a two-storey building, and something large was walking across the floor below. All at once he was wide awake; he sat up but heard nothing. He rolled off the blankets and laid his head down on the earth. Maybe footsteps, maybe the rumble of a very small earthquake, the merest tremble in the earth – the sound died away, and he never heard it again.