Fallen

by Tim Lebbon

  “Happy why?” Rhiana asked.

  “Firstly, because he tried to poison my horses. We found dead grass-rats in the stable half a day after he left, and the remains of a few tainted berry bugs.” Volkain looked up, tapped a charm above his head and set the bone swinging. “Main reason, though: if ever I've seen a cursed man, it was him.”

  Cursed, Nomi thought. True. And if Volkain knew it was me who cursed him, I wonder what his reaction would be?

  THEY WENT AROUND to the stables. There were a dozen horses there, all in good condition, and Nomi paid Volkain well for two, along with saddles and gear. Noon chose which mounts to take and led them away, talking softly, his voice making their ears twitch and flick.

  “What of the Steppes?” Beko asked.

  “It's been quiet for some time,” Volkain said. “We fought a small marauder party half a year ago, but they only come against us for what they think they can steal. If they want to get into Marrakash, they go through the hills. But from the travelers we've spoken to these last few moons, I've heard of no marauder attacks. There are rumors of a big party coming across from the mountains. But that's just whispers on the breeze.”

  “It's warning enough,” Beko said. “Thank you.”

  Volkain again offered that false smile that evaded his eyes. “You should watch out for marsh wisps.”

  “In the Pavissia Steppes?” Nomi asked. She had heard of the wisps in Ventgoria but never seen them herself. She had started to think of them as myth, though the Ventgorians she knew held them as fact.

  “In the lowlands,” Volkain said. “It's only what I've heard, but you ask for news and I'm telling it.”

  “I've never heard them mentioned outside Ventgoria,” Nomi said. Is he pissing with us now? she thought. Maybe Ramus planted a seed of doubt, and now Volkain is feeling it bloom.

  “What are marsh wisps?” Beko asked.

  “Just tales,” Nomi said. “Sprites from the depths. About as real as steam dragons.”

  They exchanged farewells with Volkain and went to where Noon and Konrad stood with the new mounts, patting their necks and talking in soft tones.

  Nomi mounted her own horse and gave her thanks once again to Volkain, but his final comments about the wisps had soured their brief stay. As the militia eased the gate aside and Nomi's party rode through, she looked once again at the web-scarred woman. Her face had not changed, her expression neutral, as though her flesh had burned and melted into a mask of indifference.

  AS THEY LEFT the border post and rode onto the plains that marked the edge of the Pavissia Steppes, and the sun cast purple and yellow streaks in the heathers, Nomi's thoughts were complex. Fear and excitement vied as she took her first steps into Pavissia. Her voyaging spirit reveled in the miles of unknown ground laid out before her, and yet she mourned what she was leaving behind—the familiarity of Long Marrakash.

  And before her, dangers more numerous than she had imagined even a few days previously. Back in Long Marrakash, sitting in Naru May's and contemplating the seeds of this voyage as the river flowed by below and around them, she had already had a partner. Ramus was wise and responsible, and they would travel together as friends. There would be threats, yes, but they would have Serian guards. They both understood that Noreela had many hidden dangers yet to be discovered. Risk was a big part of the thrill of discovery.

  Now the perils were known as well as unknown, and more terrifying because of that.

  Ramus had killed their horses to slow them down. The idea that he could have poisoned them as well had crossed her mind more than once. She did not see him as a murderer, yet she could not imagine him as a horse killer, either. Perhaps he could have slipped into their camp and infected their food; perhaps not. She was not certain either way, and the uncertainty played with her imagination, painting images that she did not welcome. And he was out there somewhere now, riding ahead of them with Lulah, and perhaps plotting fresh assaults to slow their progress even more. The thought of the Serians fighting one another seemed almost alien to her, but she also knew how persuasive Ramus could be if he wanted. In the unknown wilds of the Pavissia Steppes, perhaps Serian steel would be tainted with Serian blood.

  Ramus was like a ghost, gone from her life but haunting her all the more. He could be watching her right now. She looked right, across the rolling plains, toward the sea that lay well beyond the horizon. To her left the land was more undulating, with a thousand hiding places and endless possibilities. And ahead . . .

  Marsh wisps? Marauders? Ramus, furious and perhaps mad, buying charms when he claimed never to believe in their worth?

  She had a horse to herself again, and though more comfortable, she missed the nearness and warmth of Beko's body.

  In her backpack she carried a sheaf of rough parchment that Volkain had given her. He'd had no quills and ink, but he had rooted around in a large wooden box and found a handful of charcoal fragments. It was enough. When they camped that evening, she would set about recalling Ten's parchment pages. For what use she could not be sure . . . but the idea that Ramus had stolen something vital to the voyage stalked her, more worrying than unseen watchers, and more certain than marsh wisps.

  “Ahh, the wilds at last,” Ramin said, riding alongside her. “According to the mapmakers, at least.”

  “It's what lies at their end that interests me.”

  Ramin laughed, but it was more out of habit. He had a merry soul. “That's fine if you know,” he said. “Great Divide is all I've been told.”

  “Isn't that enough?” She was hardly surprised that he knew their destination.

  Ramin nodded his head from side to side, considering. “For now,” he said. “But when things get harder, be warned we may need more to drive us on.”

  “When things get harder?”

  “I like horse meat as much as the next Mancoserian, but dead horses on a voyage aren't good news.”

  “You think he hasn't finished?”

  “It's not my place to say,” Ramin muttered.

  “You started this conversation, so finish it.”

  The Serian sighed. “I don't dislike you, Mam Hyden. And if I didn't know better, I'd say you have no harm in you. But what I heard . . . well, if I were your absent friend, I'd be a long way from finished.”

  “He wants to get there before me,” Nomi said. “He won't waste his time with more games like last night.”

  “I play games,” Ramin said. “Back in Mancoseria, I was very good at them, before I took my seethe-gator. Head ball, whip slash. They take dedication and determination, but a lightness of approach. Go in simply to win and you're guaranteed to lose. Believe me, last night was no game. And if he wants to reach the Divide before you, speed is not the only way.”

  They rode together in silence for a while longer, but neither of them spoke again until Beko called camp.

  THAT NIGHT’S CAMP had a much more restrained feel than before. Even the previous night, with what had happened between Ramus and Nomi fresh in their minds, there had been no real sense of danger. But now that they were on the Pavissia Steppes, Beko and the Serians took their purpose more seriously. Rhiana had scouted ahead a couple of miles until she spied a suitable campsite, and upon her return the others had waited while she and Beko went to check it out. After pronouncing it safe, they rode the last couple of miles. There were always at least two Serians on guard while the camp was set up, and the fire they built was smaller than usual, shielded by screens built of stone and mud.

  Nomi felt a little safer. But only a little.

  The dark skies were the same here as back in Marrakash. The stars shone the same light in the same patterns, the moons had barely moved and the scattered clouds knew no borders. And yet everything felt different. It took Nomi until after their meal to realize that much of the difference was within her.

  Ramin told a tale, standing close to the fire and talking in low tones. He eschewed Mancoserian history and instead relayed a story about when he had first come to the Noreel
an mainland. It involved a tavern, a huge whore and the intervention of the whore's lover, but though Ramin colored it with effortless humor and a natural storyteller's grace, Nomi could not find it in herself to laugh. Perhaps it was because of the exchange she'd had with Ramin that afternoon. He could tell them about fat whores and livid lovers, but nothing could erase his belief that they were heading toward bad times.

  After the tale, Ramin went out to relieve Noon for his watch, and Nomi made her excuses and went to her tent. Beko did not even acknowledge her leaving the campfire, and that was another factor contributing to her sudden loneliness. Away from familiar territory, in the wilds, Ramus was perhaps out there seeking to do her harm . . . and the man who had become her lover was shunning her just as quickly.

  She sat before her open tent and took the parchment pages from her backpack. They were dry and brittle, but the charcoal was soft and fine. She placed the first sheet on the ground before her, and if she leaned aside she could see its surface quite clearly in the moonlight.

  Nomi drew the largest rectangle she could on the uneven parchment, and then she tried to remember.

  BY THE TIME Beko and Rhiana entered their tents and suggested she do the same, Nomi had moved on to the second sheet. The first was a tangle of scribbles and crossings-out, and she had crumpled it up and thrown it behind her into the darkness. Now she stared at a sheet with a drawn border and one vertical line. She could remember nothing else. If she closed her eyes, she knew that there had been pictures, letters and glyphs, and though she could recall seeing a page with many images, she could not place or define any of them.

  Resisting the urge to curse and shout, Nomi cast a long stare at the darkness around the camp before entering her tent.

  That night, she slept with her knife still strapped to her thigh.

  Chapter 10

  IT TOOK RAMUS most of that day to recover. Lulah had ridden them through the rest of the night, cold, wet and tired, and Ramus had been slipping in and out of a troubled sleep for several hours. He remained aware enough to hold himself upright on the saddle, but little more. There were no nightmares. When he awoke to feel dawn's virgin light warming his skin, he could recall no dreams at all.

  They passed through the border without incident, Ramus gaining information about the Pavissia Steppes and a bone charm from the big militia in charge of the border guards. When Ramus asked him what the point of a border post was when anyone could cross at a thousand places either side, the three-armed man had smiled. People cross here for the same reason you do, Voyager, he had said. Information.

  He did not trust the border militia, even when they pledged not to sell horses to those following on. Murderers, mercenaries, Ramus had said, but as he spoke he knew the militia would respect such qualities.

  So before they left, he threw the remaining berry bugs into the militia's stables.

  Then they rode hard, pausing only so that Lulah could hunt rabbit for their evening meal. The landscape changed slightly, shrubs and bracken giving way to heathers, and the hills were lower, the valleys shallower. The Pavissia Steppes was a new place for both of them, and by the time they halted that evening Ramus was pleased with the progress they had made.

  He thought of Nomi, and wondered how far she and her Serians had traveled with dead horses.

  THE DUSKY LIGHT took on a purplish tinge. Lulah was stripping, gutting and preparing a rabbit for dinner, and Ramus went to a nearby stream to fill their water skins.

  The sound of the stream was so familiar that he sat beside it for a while, taking comfort in its soporific tones. He did not need to see Lulah's edginess to acknowledge that they were somewhere different now, a place both more dangerous and less known than the Marrakash border territories they had ridden through the night before. Here could be marauders and aggressive wildlife, and the militia man had also mentioned marsh wisps. He had refused to elaborate, probably because they would not pay him enough, and it had taken Ramus until midday to remember where he had heard of them before: Nomi, from her travels in Ventgoria. She had maintained that they were creatures of myth, but it would be dangerous to completely disregard such stories.

  As he leaned over to fill their water skins, his new charm swung out from his neck. He had never put much value in such fancies, but something niggled at him constantly now, a worry that kept itself dark and hidden away. Much had changed—he and Nomi, for a start, and the fact that he was sometimes living her dreams and nightmares—but this felt like something more. It felt like . . . intrusion.

  Many people he knew wore charms to ward off certain worries. So he bought one, and named it as he put it on. He knew it would not work, but neither would it do any harm.

  He looked down at the twist of bone suspended from the cord around his neck, spinning, swaying . . . and past it, below the surface of the water, he saw a light-colored stone. He picked it out. The water was cold and took his breath away.

  The stone was flat, about the size of his palm, and it had a perfectly round hole straight through its center. The Widow had shown him a similar stone many moons ago, and as she held it up to the sky she said, Look at the moons through the hole, breathe through it three times and wear it, and it's said your heart and mind will be well for a long time. Ramus had scoffed at her beliefs back then, asking how a worn stone could influence someone's health. But the Widow had scolded him, as she often did, berating him with superior knowledge and breadth of vision.

  How can you know this is only a worn stone? she said. You know precious little of the Noreela we live in now, and what of the past? It's said by some that a great shaman once cast such stones. He molded them from his own seed, and clay from the shores of the southern sea that you now call Sordon Sound. He was the first charm breather, and he breathed goodness and health into the clay before it hardened. When all thirteen pieces were firm, he strung them on a rope of twisted hawk gut and hung it around his neck. The weight of the charms bore him down, but he didn't take off that necklace until the day he died. And when he died, he was almost three hundred years old. He had friends in life, but in death they coveted what he had possessed, the talents and charms, the shreds of early magichala which none of them could begin to understand. And they tore his body apart, seeking to make their own charms from his bones and organs, knotting his guts to string his toes around their necks, and his fingers, and his incorruptible eyes. The necklace was destroyed, each individual stone carried from there by the people who had proven themselves no friends at all. And in their betrayal lay their doom. Some of them lived almost a year after the great shaman died, but certainly little more than a year later all thirteen were dead. Rotting into the land, eaten by carrion creatures, taken apart just as they had taken him apart. And the stones that gave him such long health sank into Noreela. Sometimes, they're found.

  The Widow had held the stone out to Ramus, but he smiled and shook his head.

  Don't believe me, Ramus? she had asked.

  Those same words echoed in his mind now. He held the stone up and viewed the darkening sky through the hole at its heart. The life moon was out already, low to the horizon and half-full, and he turned until he could see it through the charm.

  It was superstition, a story of a story, and he was a Voyager. Committed to truth and fact, science and discovery.

  He breathed through the hole three times. Nothing felt different.

  “I'm not sure, Widow,” he whispered. “Not anymore.” He placed the stone gently on his knee and took the bone charm from around his neck. The militia had denied any knowledge of what the charm was for, but it had called to Ramus as it swung from the ceiling, set spinning when the man nudged it in passing. Now he unknotted the leather thong and fed it through the hole in the stone.

  It was no bother wearing something like this. If it did not work, he had lost nothing. If it did, then perhaps he could maintain his health until they reached the Great Divide.

  He carried the water skins back to camp, and if Lulah noticed his new ador
nment, she did not mention it.

  THE FOOD WAS good but not great, almost as if Lulah had lost heart after leaving her companions. Afterward, she said that she was going to patrol the area for a while, and left Ramus sitting alone by the fire.

  He took the parchment pages from his backpack. Placing them carefully on his knees he touched them first, feeling the texture of the pages and wondering whose fingers had touched them before him, and how many, and how often. He smelled them, brushed them against his face, listened to the rustle as he waved them past his ear.

  The Pavissia Steppes smelled different. He was used to the aroma of heather, but the heather here gave off a warm, earthy stink. The air was richer and wilder. The parchment smelled almost familiar, and Ramus felt a sudden, surprising pang for Long Marrakash, now far behind.

  Lulah appeared from the shadows to ask if he was all right.

  “I'm fine,” he said. He felt uncomfortable with the pages exposed on his lap, as if anyone else's viewing them would detract from their power. Lulah stood by his shoulder and looked down. When she reached out to touch the pages, Ramus covered them with the map he had drawn.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  He shook his head. “It's just . . .” An awkward silence was broken by something calling in the dark, a low cry from far away.

  “I should do another circle of the camp,” the Serian said.

  Ramus nodded and watched her walk away. She's on my side, he thought. But that idea was naïve. There were no sides here, only those with knowledge and those without.

  He took out his journal and charcoals, skipping the first page, resisting the temptation to scrub Nomi's name from sight. He could not change the past. He turned past the page where he had made the mark in the temple, and when there were blank sheets before him, he placed it on the ground between his feet.