“The work keeps me too busy to think, most times.” Etch glanced south, past the dingy walls. “I still have family back there — a sister and her kids. They run brush-sheep and she does a little weaving. Maybe someday I’ll go back. It’s only times like this, or Midwinter and Solstice, that I remember too much.” He raised his mug to Terricel. “Here’s to forgetting.”
Terricel drank to forgetting.
o0o
Pound-pound-pound...
Someone kept clobbering Terricel over the head with sickening regularity. The bones of his skull had softened into exquisitely sensitive membranes, flexing and rippling with each blow.
Pound-pound-pound...
Why didn’t whoever it was just take an axe to his cranium and get it over with?
He opened his eyes. It was dark and his teeth were coated with moss. Something bright wavered in front of his face, and a wave of dizziness filled the interval between the beats of pain. His stomach gurgled and threatened to turn itself inside out. His nose throbbed. He touched it gingerly and wondered how something so small could generate so much pain.
“Awake, are we?” said a vaguely familiar, not unfriendly voice.
Terricel closed his eyes and rolled on his back. He was lying on something solid and much too hard. “It’s the middle of the night,” he croaked. Every part of his body seemed to be either bruised or stiff or both.
“Only an hour until dawn.” Fingers dug into his shoulder, shaking him. “Here now, sit up and get this into you. You’ve got a walloping hangover or I’m a hop-toad’s uncle.”
Terricel forced himself up on one elbow, holding his head with the other hand. He groaned and took the glass thrust in his face. The drink, thick and hot, tasted of citron and cayenne. It burned all the way down, but his eyes opened wider.
“Etch, how could you do this to me?”
A chuckle from beyond the wavering light of a cheap solar lantern. “Maybe you’d rather I left you in a heap on The Elk’s doorstep? A pretty boy like you with money still in your pockets?”
“I guess I — ”
“I didn’t haul Jekk off you just to let those scum-bats have their turn. And I really needed another drink last night but the barkeep doesn’t give credit. I figured we were even, and I dragged you home with me. Right now I’ve got to get some horses fed, but I fixed you my special concoction first. My uncle used to swear it’d cure anything from hangnail to scorbutics. He gave it to his horses, too.”
“You dosed me with horse tonic?”
“It’s probably too good for the likes of you, but what can I say? I got a kind heart.” Etch slapped him on the back and stood up. Squinting against the lantern light, Terricel could barely make out his wavering form. “You can camp out here as long as you like, just clean up if you puke. It’s not that I’m a trusting soul, but there’s nothing worth stealing or I’d’ve pawned it last night. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I’m not much for regular drinking.”
Terricel tried to stand, sat back with a plomp! and buried his face in his hands. When he looked up again, Etch was gone. His head hurt, although less than before, and he didn’t know where he was. Somehow he had to make his way home, wash and change and drag himself to the Senate for the meeting this morning — among other business were the final plans for Pateros’s funeral. As for the pain in his head and the roiling in his stomach, he deserved them as reminders of his own folly, if nothing else.
Holding his head with both hands, he got slowly to his feet. Windows ran along the wall in back of him, letting in a faint pink light. He could distinguish the outlines of furniture, the shadows of doors, two open, one closed.
A few steps into the center of the room and the slime in his mouth turned acrid. His stomach erupted into outright rebellion. He rushed for the nearest open door, which led to the kitchen. He bent over the sink, heaving until nothing more came up. He ducked his head under the faucet and ran the water full cold over the back of his neck until he started shivering.
The other door led to a wide cobblestoned yard, filled with yellow dawn-light. Across the yard sat a huge barn with a bright blue star painted on it. Half a dozen men milled around with twice as many horses, some of them saddled and the others laden with packs.
One of the saddled horses, a black and white spotted animal that looked all legs to Terricel, stood up on its hind legs, whinnying. The man holding its reins waved his arms and cursed.
“No, not like that!” Etch appeared from behind two of the pack animals and took the reins of the spotted horse. He sidled up beside it, stroking its nose and speaking soothingly. Without turning to look at the other man, he said, “Get on, get on.”
Terricel sat down on the wooden steps and watched Etch organize the chaotic assortment of men and animals into an orderly procession. They filed out of the yard, heading northwest.
“What a collection of fumble-footed twitterbats.” Shaking his head, Etch ambled over to Terricel. “The boss set this lot up. Another of his money-making schemes. If it was up to me, they’d be walking.”
“Where are they headed?”
“The farming country past Oak Glen.” Etch sat down beside Terricel. “They just might make it if they realize their horses have more basic common sense than they do. If I had half that much sense, I’d find some excuse to get out of here, too. What about you? You’re looking better than the last time I saw you.”
“I don’t know if you saved my life with that horse tonic of yours or if I’m living to regret it,” Terricel said. “I appreciate your taking me in, but truthfully, I don’t know where I am.”
“The Blue Star Stables, such as it is. Where do you need to get to on this fine morning?”
“Back to The Elk Pass will be good enough.”
Etch narrowed his eyes. “So there’s secrets behind that young face, are there? You keep them, friend, for I’ve more than enough sad tales to last my own lifetime.”
Chapter 11: Kardith of the Rangers
People hurried past me, some pulling their hoods forward over their faces, others bowing their bare heads to the rain. A few paused to open their umbrellas, bright round spots against the gray and purple.
The rain captured me as it always did, even on the Ridge. When I was fighting, I never felt it. The only way to stay alive was to not even know it was there. But there was never a time when I could pretend water from the sky were a thing that happened every day.
I’d seen rain before. It rained on the steppe, sudden dark-moon downpours that burst into flash floods. This Laurean rain fell gently, pearling on my hair and cloak. I lifted my face and tasted the pure soft water.
The taste carried memories of how I’d first come to Laurea...
...running through the canyons that bordered the steppe, mile after mile of wind-eaten sandstone, with nothing but a knife and an old ghamel pack slung over one shoulder, stuffed with a stolen blanket and a few scraps of dried meat that didn’t last long...
...running until my legs could no longer hold me, never daring to look back, my breasts aching and finally drying up. Trapping small game when I was lucky and not too scared to stay in one place, once or twice beating off bandits...
...sleeping huddled under rock ledges while the ice-tipped winds howled through the canyons. Drinking myself sick at each new stream to ease the cramping in my belly.
...running, hiding, running. And then, one day, toward sundown, the sky half black with clouds, I came upon a little green valley with a stone hut and a trickle of wood smoke curling upward. Brush-sheep bleated from their pens and a dog barked. I could steal a sheep, but I wasn’t sure I had the strength to carry it away. And if the owner caught me, I’d have to fight again.
Fight? I could hardly stand. I hadn’t eaten in three days, and the cuts on my back had broken open again and gotten infected.
Just then the door swung open and someone in a long sheepskin coat came out and stood there, staring at me. My feet slipped from under me and I fell, the breath knocked ou
t of me, fell and tumbled hard down the rocky slope. I lay there, too exhausted to care what happened next.
Beyond the hills, thunder rumbled. Moisture touched my face, cool as a blessing, trickling between my fever-parched lips. Smells arose around me — sweet grass, pungent herbs, the metallic stink of lightning.
I knew then that I was dead and the Mother had gathered me to her. She bent over me, her face shadowed in the dying light.
But it was a human face above mine, eyes buried in a mass of wrinkles, feathery gray hair braided loosely down her back. Gently she lifted me in her strong shepherd’s arms.
I whispered, “Where...am I?”
“Laurea,” she said. “You’re safe in Laurea.”
o0o
It seemed that half the city had gathered here in the plaza, rain or no. People moved out of the way when they saw my Ranger’s vest. I moved through the crowd, uneasy from the closeness of so many strangers. My fingers kept touching my knives — long-knife, forearm knife, belt buckle.
A canopied platform had been set up for the people too important to get wet, with more canvas stretched over a rectangular patch of earth. Some of the paving stones had been pried up and the plot lined with buckets of flowers. They’d bury Pateros where he fell and plant a tree on the place. It stood ready in its wooden pot, a well-shaped bronzewood that might live a hundred years or more. Longer than any of us would, that was sure.
On the Ridge, we burned our dead whenever we could, but on the steppe we had no extra wood. We placed the bodies of our Tribe up on great cairns of stone — funeral mounts, we called them — and offered them up to the father-god or Mother-of-us-all or whatever god bothered to answer our prayers. Actually, it was the bloodbats that came for them in the night, swooping down to suck the last precious drops of moisture. In the morning there would be only scraps of paper-dry skin and scattered bones.
I wiped the rain from my eyes.
Damn.
When I came to Laureal City that first time, I never thought of the past. This was my new life, my whole life. I had no other. Now wherever I turned I saw the steppe all over again, pulling me deeper into things better left buried.
But not for long. This morning I’d been given a packet of orders for Captain Derron. Tomorrow I would be gone from this city, back to the Ridge where danger was something I could kill. For today, I had time for Pateros’s funeral and that was all.
An old man stepped forward on the platform and lifted his hands for silence. The crowd settled down, and between the umbrellas in front of me, I caught glimpses of the people sitting up there out of the rain. A mass of gray Senate robes and the green of the Inner Council, the purple hoods draped over their shoulders.
Some trick of machinery magnified the old man’s voice and sent it booming over the plaza. I listened for a few minutes but heard only words. The unbroken cycle of life, the great man living on in our noblest dreams, the strength of his legacy. Nothing but Laurean wishcrap. The old man gave way to another, and their words rustled like so many dead leaves. I would turn my back on them if I could, but I was here to honor Pateros.
Now the gaea-priests with their bald heads and multicolored robes came snaking along the cordoned-off pathways, singing and playing their flutes and drums. Their voices were like songbats in flight, one moment soaring together, the next moment breaking rank to weave and dart in amongst the other. They penetrated the crowd as if it were a labyrinth.
The people around me joined in the refrain, a simple melody, words that made no sense even as my lips silently shaped them:
“Ashes to ashes,
Roots to roots,
Let the circle be unbroken,
O Life, we’re one with Thee.”
Like I said, Laurean wishcrap.
The priests passed me, followed by six people carrying a railed pallet on their shoulders. They walked slowly, as if wading through honey. Montborne, his head bare in the rain, his face proud and stern like a hero’s, his uniform a torch of color. Esmelda...
My throat clenched at the sight of her, strong as a tree in her flowing green robe, like a Laurean image of the Mother. If Montborne’s face was a marble mask, hers was a mirror. Her eyes seemed to see everything and nothing. People murmured as she passed.
On the pallet lay a coffin wrapped in green silk, tied with ribbons of a dozen colors. As it went by, people threw flowers that slid off the silk to leave a trail of petals.
And tears. Around me, men and women began crying, some silently, others in strange, animal-sounding sobs. I could feel the calling in my bones — Now is the time to weep. But it had no power over me. My breath came easy behind my breasts, my heartbeat slow and regular. I stood here in honor, not in mourning.
You won’t even mourn for Aviyya? a voice sifted through my mind.
I have not offered her up to the bloodbats. Not yet.
Then it came to me that there was nothing left to me but the promises I made. The one I spoke out loud, to Pateros and Laurea. The one I made silently, in my heart.
Once I ran away to save my own life. Now what will I do to save hers?
At the plot of earth, they set down Pateros’s silk-wrapped coffin. Each pallet-bearer took a shovelful of damp soil and deposited it on the tarp the priests laid out. Soon the shovel passed to the Senators and other dignitaries, come down from their platform.
And now the shovel went to the crowd. How the priests managed it with so many, I don’t know, but there was something for each one of us to do, digging, lowering the coffin, burying it, planting the tree. By the time it was my turn, dirt completely covered the green silk. The man before me stood weeping for a moment, hands clasped in front of his body, and then moved on. I picked up a handful of flower petals, trampled and fragrant, and tossed them into the grave.
Words echoed in my head: “Father-god, receive him well.”
Ay, what was the use of it? Dead was dead. There was neither father-god nor Mother, only darkness and the leering demon, laughing at us all.
I lifted my face to the sweet Laurean rain. Laugh away, bastard god! It’s not over yet.
o0o
The gaea-priests climbed back on the platform for another round of wandering melodies and predictable dumbshit lyrics, composed a couple of centuries ago by someone with no sense of music. Now it was too late to do anything about it, the stuff was traditional. It went on too long, as everything official in Laurea did.
The shocky silence in the crowd seeped away. People around me first whispered to their neighbors and then spoke outright. A few of them shouldered their way toward the vendors, hawking food and drink on the edges of the plaza.
A vendor rolled his cooking cart, crying out apples and sausages. He had plenty of takers. Me, too, although I should have known better. The sausages were soy but steaming and spicy, wrapped in crispy fry-bread. I licked the juices from my fingers and continued making my way toward the platform. I didn’t like crowds but I had nothing better to do except wait. Even with the City Guards moving people aside, it was still too packed to push my way in. Eventually they would thin out and I’d be able to get through. Whether Esmelda would hear me out was another matter.
We were a long time together on the Ridge before Avi told me who her mother was. “The only thing I ever wanted from her was my freedom,” she said. “And I had to take it, like a thief.”
Such pride, Avi had. “I’d never ask her for anything, not even if my life depended on it.”
Once I ran away to save my own life. I had no pride left now, not even the pride of cowardice, to beg this formidable old woman for her daughter’s life.
How did I know Avi was still alive? How did I know Esmelda could help? I only knew what I would have to live with if I didn’t try.
I must have some pride left, after all.
An undertone in the crowd caught my ear. Not their words, something else... I couldn’t hear the pattern, couldn’t feel what was going on and that made me twitchy. Earlier I thought it was just the closene
ss of so many strangers with no fighting room, but now something prowled the plaza like a shadow panther. I’d seen them hunt gazelle on the steppe, crouching and rippling like gusts of sand, closer and closer, then suddenly the gazelle was dead and carried half a mile away before it realized what had happened.
I didn’t trust this place, this vast and terrible place. Anything could happen here.
Damn.
Uniforms clustered thick around the platform, City Guards black and military bronze-and-red. Some looked too young to be soldiers, their faces too grim and too quick to show anger. They had none of the look of hard training. One kid in uniform shoved another in civilian clothing.
“I told you to stand back!”
“Who gave you the right?” the other kid snapped back, his fists up and ready. His body said, Come on, try me.
The nearest City Guard stepped between them. “Both of you, out of here.”
I stood beside him and together we watched the boys edge back into the crowd. I kept my hands in plain sight, resting on my belt. The guard was a good ten years older than me, a little soft around the edges and pumped up with working the crowd, but not above a friendly nod for a Ranger. I nodded back and jerked my head in the direction the kid in the uniform had disappeared.
“What’s that? Nursery recruits?”
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