by Shannah Jay
Good profits to be made in the older claims. More coin to spare there.'
'You were talking about your daughter,' prompted Cheral.
'Oh, yes. Well, Sythia sent me word about the child and demanded that I go and see them. She said it was urgent, so I went. She'd got married when she found she was carrying a child, but her husband died, well, he was killed, actually, by a band of fanatics. When the troubles started escalating, she wanted my help in getting out to the new settlements. I asked my deleff and they seemed happy enough about it, so we went. I daresay she's out there still. Prudent woman, Sythia. Good mother. She's a real survivor, that one.'
'Why didn't you marry her when you found she'd borne your daughter?' demanded Cheral. 'She was free by then.'
'I would have, actually, but she didn't want to. We discussed it, but she likes her independence. And besides, she wanted to go to a new settlement. What would I have done in a new settlement? I'm no farmer.'
He shrugged and gave Narla a wry smile. 'So I'm quite free to pretend I'm your husband.' His eyes said he was not only free, but delighted.
She nodded and gave him a worried smile. 'I swore when we left Dsheresh that I'd never take a husband again. I've had enough of husbands. But we can pretend to be married, if it'll look better. Who do we say Cheral is, though?'
Jonner's grin deepened. 'There's only one thing she can be.'
'What's that?'
'My wife's mother. Whenever we meet anyone, you just go ahead and boss us both around, Cheral. They'll have no trouble believing our story, I promise you.'
Even Cheral smiled at that. 'I only boss you around for your own good.'
'That's the trouble,' muttered Jonner. Narla nudged him and he said no more.
It was mid-afternoon before the dust cloud resolved itself into a flock of wool nerids and three herders. By the time they reached the wagon, Narla and Cheral were sitting in the shade, modestly covered from head to toe, in spite of the heat of the day.
'Give you greetings, friends!' said Jonner, walking forward to meet the newcomers.
The two men and one boy nodded, their expressions suspicious.
'Seen any deleff?' Jonner asked. 'Our old pair left us and we're waiting for some new ones to turn up.'
The older man shook his grizzled head. 'No deleff. No dust on any horizon, either. Just us.'
'Is there a village nearby, then?' Jonner asked. 'We're running short of water.'
'There is a village. That's where we live.'
'Is it far?'
'A couple of days' walk. Longer for such as you.' His eyes said he regarded Jonner as an inferior being out here on the plains.
Jonner's face fell. 'I daren't leave the wagons for so long, in case the new deleff turn up. 'Any chance of you sending us out some water? We have plenty of goods to trade for it. You wouldn't lose by helping us.'
The men exchanged glances, then nodded. 'What've you got?' demanded the older one.
'Herbs of all sorts, glowberry juice, beringa sap cordial.'
'Aah. Useful things, those.' A knife appeared in the older man's hand. 'Why should we bother to send you water? Why shouldn't we just take what we want?'
The younger man was grinning, but his body was tense and ready for action. Without anyone telling him to, the boy started moving round towards the rear of the wagon.
Cheral, who was sitting in the meagre shade thrown by the wagon, reached for her frying pan, which she had prudently set on the ground behind her. It had defended her before and it looked as if it was about to come in useful again. Narla changed her weight around so that her right hand was ready to seize the club Jonner had made for her. He’d been showing her how to use it effectively. Both women kept their heads lowered, as if cowed, but they watched what was happening through their eyelashes.
Jonner, still looking very relaxed, shook his head. 'You can try, I suppose,' he said cheerfully. 'But it might not be as easy as you think.'
The older man was grinning openly now, like his companion. They obviously expected easy pickings here.
'A scrawny little fellow like you an' two women, one of them getting old. You wouldn't stand a chance against us and you know it. It'd be easiest if you just gave us what we wanted, fellow. Why, if you did that, we might even send you some water afterwards.'
'And deleff might fly,' said Jonner. From nowhere a knife appeared in his hand, its blade gleaming silver-blue in the sunlight.
Behind him, Cheral concentrated and made the knife blade gleam more brightly than it should have. 'Keep an eye on the lad, Narla,' she whispered. 'If he tries to touch anything on the wagon, we'll have to act. I'm not letting those louts take my things!'
Jonner spun the knife in the air and caught it deftly. Again, it gleamed more brightly than it should have, and the glances the two men exchanged were uneasy. A second knife appeared in Jonner's other hand, and it, too, shone like a mirror that was reflecting the sun. 'I'm ambidextrous,' said Jonner cheerfully. 'Trained in Jan-Halani. The knives are of best Kelandra steel. Sharp. Very sharp. One of you would suffer, even if the other caught me.'
'The lad's just reached the wagon,' Narla said loudly.
Cheral had only a limited ability to cast illusions, but she did her best now, throwing a raas wasp towards the young fellow. He yelled and backed away, afraid of being stung. The wasp winked out of existence.
'What's up with you, Diff?' demanded the older man. 'Can't you hold steady? There's only two women there.'
The lad swallowed. 'I saw - I saw a raas wasp. Then it vanished.'
'There's no raas wasps out here on the plains, you woolbrain. You've been staring at the sun again, more like. I keep telling you to shade your eyes an' stop staring into the distance.'
There was no obvious signal given, but suddenly the two men rushed forward towards Jonner. A knife flashed and pinned the arm of the younger one to his side. He yelled and stared down stupidly for a moment at the blood welling out around the blade, then sank to his knees yelling in agony. The blade was at an angle, pinning flesh to flesh, but it hadn’t touched a vital organ. Jonner knew better than to strike a killing blow in the company of a Sister. And anyway, he wasn’t one for violence, only getting into fights at all when he had to defend himself and much preferring to get out of trouble by using his wits.
The older man ignored his companion and made straight for Jonner, knife held ready to slash at the small man. When he reached the place where Jonner had been standing, his victim was no longer there. And before he could swing round, Jonner had chopped at his throat with the side of his hand, and laid him flat on the ground, head spinning as he choked for breath.
Near the wagon, the lad also lay moaning on the ground, felled by Cheral's frying pan.
'Brother, forgive me!' she panted. 'You know I would only strike someone in self-defence.'
The lad stared at her in horror and struggled to speak. 'The old one called on her Brother,' he managed after a minute. 'She spoke like she was a Sister.'
The two women and Jonner tensed, ready to meet a fanatical attack. But the older man jerked backwards, sucked in his breath loudly, and just stood there, staring at them. 'Is that true?' he demanded. 'Are you really a Sister?'
'Yes,' Cheral hefted the frying pan and glared at him. 'What's that to you?'
Jonner slipped another knife from its hiding place and prepared to meet a second attack.
Cheral took a step forward, her expression very determined. 'Keep an eye on the boy, Narla. Use your club on him, if necessary.'
But the man had dropped his knife and was holding his empty hands out to Cheral, palms upwards in token of surrender. 'Forgive me, Sister,' he murmured, and bowed his head. 'We didn't know you was a Sister.
We thought you was one of them snake-lovers, with you two wearin' them dark robes, like their women do. A few traders have gone over to them an' when they do, the deleff desert them. That's what we thought had happened to you. You're not the first group we've found out here on the plains.'
'Is he telling the truth?' Jonner demanded of Cheral.
'Yes.' She could sense that quite clearly. 'And these men are definitely not of the Serpent, though our Brother wouldn’t approve of their thieving ways.'
The breath whistled out of Jonner and relief showed on his face as he slipped his knife into its hiding place and let his hands drop to his side. 'Thank you, Brother,' he murmured. 'I'll never doubt you again.'
'You'd better fetch that injured man over here, Jonner,' commanded Cheral. 'I may not be a Healer, but I can tend his wound. I hope you haven't hurt him badly. You're too ready to use those knives of yours.'
'No, Sister. You know I wouldn't do that.' Jonner rolled his eyes to the heaven. 'She never changes, does she?' he muttered. 'You save her life and she still complains.'
CHAPTER 10 THE EYE OF THE STORM
Cheral tended the herders' injuries as best she could, then the men, abjectly apologetic, set off to fetch back some water from their village. Jonner insisted on them leaving the lad behind as a hostage, but during the night he escaped.
'I should have tied him up,' Jonner mourned when they discovered that Diff had gone.
'It’d have been hard to watch him all the time, whatever we did,' said Cheral.
'But who knows whether they'll return?' Jonner growled in his throat, annoyed with himself for such carelessness. 'I'm slipping, that's what. I've grown soft. If I go on like this, I'll forget how to make a profit.'
Narla nudged him and pointed to Cheral, who was standing motionless. She stood there for so long the other two exchanged worried glances. Her eyes were glazed over and she wasn’t moving a single muscle.
When at last she stirred, they would have stepped forward to help her, but she didn’t even seem to see them. Her voice had a slight echo to it. 'They will return. Our Brother has not abandoned us. We still have our part to play in the greater quest.'
After a few more minutes of silence, she shook herself and made a tutting noise.
Jonner cleared his throat. 'I - I think you've just made a prophecy, Cheral.'
She stared at him and her voice came slowly, as if speaking was a great effort. 'Yes. I feel - I feel that our Brother is very close to us at the moment.'
By mid-afternoon, the heat was searing the grasslands and all three of them had taken refuge in the wagon, where the awning at least gave some shelter. Cheral spent some time trying to teach the others how to improve their control over their body temperatures and again, she noted that Jonner managed to carry out her instructions just as well as Narla. Afterwards she sat in her favourite position at the back of the wagon, with her head leaning against the folds of the rear awning, leaving the other two to sit together at the front of the wagon, chatting quietly.
It was Jonner who noticed the cloud of dust on the horizon. He jerked to his feet. 'Cheral!'
'Mmm?'
'Cheral, there's something coming this way.'
She snapped into instant alertness in the way Sisters were trained to do, and moved to the front of the wagon to stare across the grasslands. 'How far away is it, do you think?'
'I can't tell yet. If it's a big group, it could be far away. If it's a small group, it could be only a couple of hours away. It can't be the herders, though. They haven't had time to get back to their village again, let alone return with water. And anyway, they went off in another direction.' From then onwards, he sat on the driving bench watching the cloud of dust grow bigger.
Just as the light was fading into dusk, it became clear what was approaching. Jonner stood up, cheering loudly. 'It's deleff! They've found us! Deleff!' He seized Narla and pulled her down from the wagon with him, then whirled her round into a wild dance, before running across the grass towards the dust cloud.
Cheral smiled as she watched him go. 'Thank you, Brother, she murmured. 'Thank you for bringing help.'
By the time Jonner and Narla returned with a pair of deleff, he was beaming. 'These are Sh'Hessa and Fendral. We've been honoured in being granted a deleffal on our team. She's very ancient, very wise, and has made this journey specially to help us, delaying her own transition.' He bowed to the larger of the two creatures as he spoke. He didn’t quite understand some of the ideas Sh'Hessa had slipped into his mind during their first communion, but he was awed and pleased to be dealing with such a deleff. The bigger they are, the older, Traders always said. Sh'Hessa was huge, the largest deleff he’d ever seen.
Cheral moved forward to bow in greeting and lay her hands on each large head in turn, as Jonner had taught them to do. 'We thank you for coming to us, Sh'Hessa and Fendral,' she said. 'May we travel safely together across this land.'
The deleffal snorted through her nostrils, then moved towards the walk-in harness of the wagon, stamping her feet and showing plainly that she wished to set off immediately.
'Better pack everything on the wagon quickly,' Jonner advised needlessly.
'I'm not blind!' snapped Cheral, moving forward with her usual efficiency. 'Don't just stand there giving me advice I don't need, come and help me!'
Within a few minutes they were bumping down the slope towards the sea of grass. As they left the rocky area behind, the going grew smoother, but they followed no path that Jonner could see.
For hours the deleff pulled the wagon across the plain, moving steadily with the heavy trampling rhythm that was peculiarly theirs. Jonner sat on the driving seat, though there was no need to guide the deleff. He smiled, feeling comfortable again, a trader travelling the Twelve Claims with deleff to draw his wagon.
Two moons rose slowly in the sky, full enough to give them light and lend an eerie, silvered beauty to the plain. At night the surface of the land looked even more like water than in the daytime, especially the patches of longer grass which rippled in the light breezes that still wandered across the plains. Narla fell asleep with her head in Jonner's lap, then Jonner fell asleep as well, still with the half smile on his face.
Cheral was left to her own thoughts, and these were strange. She, the most prosaic of women, who had always known her own limitations, who had always known that her Gifts were of the strictly practical type, could sense that she was changing. She longed for Herra's counsel on this. Perhaps she was just imagining the changes. She considered that idea for a moment, then shook her head firmly. No, she wasn't imagining anything. She really was changing.
She didn’t doubt that Herra was alive, but sensed somehow that the Elder Sister was far away. For the first time in nearly a hundred years, Cheral knew herself to be alone in a situation where no path had been made by other Sisters, where there were no temple guidelines tested by time and experience. It was for her to be wise, to lead Jonner and Narla through the dangers of a land ruled by Those of the Serpent, and above all, to find the girl born one night to a mother murdered in her birthing chamber, a mother who had been a Lord Claimant's beloved wife, but who had posed a threat to Those of the Serpent.
The child had been saved through Davred's warning, when he was still up in the satellite, and that same night, Herra had prophesied that the child was a Key Life. 'Twin destinies unfold,' Cheral murmured to herself. 'Yes, it's time now for them to start preparing. We must find Taslyn, take her with us to the High Alder, as Herra once planned. Goodness, she'll be seven now! If she's still alive.' But that thought didn’t please her. Of course the girl was alive. Their Brother wouldn’t have let Those of the Serpent destroy a Key Figure in their quest.
But finding Taslyn again would be a daunting task. All the crèches Those of the Serpent could find had been raided, and both resident Sisters and children had had to scatter. Their Brother alone knew where Taslyn would be now. Cheral's face took on a determined expression. She wasn’t one to shirk her duty, not when her Brother called to her so clearly. Nor was she one to doubt. He would guide her, if she only put her trust in him.
A little later she said quietly, needing to say the words aloud, 'I shall not worry about Herra and the rest of my Kindred. They will find their own path
across the land. They all know we're heading for the High Alder. I shall save all my energies for my own task. Brother, guide me now. Guide us all.'
The deleff walked all night and in the morning Jonner spotted another dust cloud on the horizon. By noon they had caught up with the three herders, who stood gaping at them.
'I see Diff found you again, Olleff,' Cheral said to the older man, her tone sweetly acidic. 'A fine hostage he made. Perhaps now you'll lead us to your village? And without any tricks.'
'Yes, lady.' He eyed the deleff in awe, bobbed his head in an awkward salute to them and set off again across the brittle bleached summer grass. He and his friends wouldn’t accept a ride on the wagon, but kept up with the deleff quite easily.
As the shadows lengthened and another night approached, they reached a place where the earth was somewhat darker and the grass not so dry looking. On the horizon they could see a raised patch of rocky ground with green trees and shrubs growing on it.
'That's our village,' said Olleff. The other two seemed to be struck dumb by Cheral. 'There's a couple of good springs and for some reason we get more rain on our little hill than most parts round here do.'
'What's your village called?' Jonner asked idly.
'Twin Springs, of course.'
'Do Those of the Serpent have a shrine there?'
'No!'
'Then how do they get you to make sacrifice?'
'They don't. They only find oldsters and very young children when they come calling. So they collect tribute from us instead.' He spat on the ground. 'Thieving devils! You Sisters were easier to deal with. We only had to take our children into town when they were fourteen for the Spring Choosings. That's all you ever asked of us. An' we counted it an honour when one was chosen to serve in the temples. Fair's fair, after all.
You provided our healers in return and we only had to pay them what we thought right when they helped us.'
His voice grew thick with emotion. 'We've missed your healers, Sister. One of my own children died for want of a healer. Things've gone from bad to worse since them devils took over, I tell you.'