by Dave Duncan
"Are you suggesting my mother was murdered in her own house?"
"Someone tried to murder her outside of it, mistress. They might have paid her to finish the job."
Frena had never thought of that. But she had seen Father throw the stupid woman out. What was Verk trying to tell her? He shielded his eyes from the sun as he studied the village ahead.
The track was barely visible, and Bitterfeld was only a scatter of mud hovels around a spring. No doubt one of those thatch roofs covered a shrine to the Bright Ones and some others cattle sheds. What a revolting prospect! How could anyone stand the lethal dullness of life in such a burrow, where the principal occupation would be keeping the livestock out of the crops? But Father owned these lands, as he owned so much around Skjar, and the residents would certainly make Frena welcome, offer confections of berry juice, honey, and cream; have the children sing and dance for her. She would inspect the village and tell Father's tallymen what was needed, if anything.
Except that there was nobody home. Some sort of ceremony was already in progress a couple of bowshots away from the village, at the base of a rocky knoll bedecked with a few straggly fruit trees. The crowd looked surprisingly big to have come from so few houses.
"What's happening? A midsummer festival?"
"Something," Verk muttered, frowning.
"Praying for rain, perhaps. Let us go and see." Frena worked the reins, easing Night back, flicking Dark's haunches. The chariot curved off across the fields, heading for the assembly.
The center of attention was a man standing under a tree with his arms raised, as if appealing to the Bright Ones. The crowd had gathered in an arc before him, children closest, adults on the outside. Voices surged like waves of Ocean beating on shingle, but in no song or chorus she knew.
"What in the world are they doing?"
Verk did not answer, his craggy features oddly tense as he studied the scene.
"Which god do farmers pray to?" Even a city girl ought to know that much. "Holy Weru, perhaps? He's god of storms."
Still concentrating on the crowd, Verk muttered, "Not Weru, mistress! Not farmers."
"Holy Ucr, then?"
Everyone knew Father was an initiate of the Ucrist mystery, for no one could acquire so much wealth without the god's blessing. As patron lord of prosperity and abundance, Ucr should support farmers as much as merchants.
"They might pray to Ucr to stay away," Verk muttered. "Holy Nula, more like. Turn away, mistress! This is not for you. Go back—now!"
"You do not give me orders!"
"Stop her!" howled Uls, who had caught up with them by cutting the corner of the curve.
The crowd had noticed her approach and turned to watch. So far the man under the tree was ignoring her... and was wearing nothing but a blindfold? The man under the tree was hung there by his wrists, feet barely touching the ground. He was bloody, as if he had been savagely beaten.
"What is this?" Frena cried.
"Drive on, mistress!" Verk barked. "This is not for you."
"I am not going anywhere until I understand what is going on here! And what are those men over there doing?" Three of them, digging a hole.
"Tell her that black hair is bad luck!" Uls yelled shrilly.
"And black onagers, too! Drive away, mistress, as you value your life. They think you're coming to rescue him."
"I will rescue him!" she shouted. "What crime has he committed? What Speaker has pronounced holy Demern's judgment? Is that hole meant to be a grave?"
"Of course it is," Verk howled. "Now, drive on!"
Some of the watchers shouted and started running forward.
"Remind her what happened to her mother!" Uls screamed.
"I will not drive on!" Frena bent and gripped the brake lever with both hands. She raised it to dig the claw into the ground; the chariot shuddered and slowed, throwing her against the wicker of the front and raising a cloud of red dust. "What they are doing is murder. Tell them who I am. I want to know what they're doing to that man and what he's done to deserve—"
"Missy!" Verk barked, in a tone she had not heard from him before. He jerked the brake lever from her grip by slamming it down with his sandal. "Your father swore by his god that he would have me impaled if I did not bring you home safely today. Now you must drive on or I will."
With his longer arms, he reached past her to tug on Dark's reins. He snatched the whip from the socket and expertly laid it on Night's back. Braying in protest, the onager surged forward and the car began to turn away from the mob.
The mob howled and gave chase.
"What the man has done is use the evil eye, mistress. I expect he cursed the lambing or made the rain stay away." Something clinked off his helmet. "What they are doing, mistress, or are about to do, is send him back to the Old One who sent him, and whose thing he is." Gradually the chariot was gathering speed. "And good riddance for all such as he!"
The crowd was running. They were coming for her, like the mob that had killed her mother. Black hair was unlucky, the mark of the Old One. Nonsense, of course— Florengians had darker pigmentation than Vigaelians, that was all, and she had inherited it from her mother. Shouting and baying, the crowd streamed toward her. She could make out no words, but the hatred was obvious. The village dog pack had arrived already, yapping and snarling all around, making Dark and Night twitch and snap and try to kick.
The man under the tree had been a Vigaelian spattered with filth and blood, not a Florengian, so it was not his color that had provoked the lynching. Perhaps he really was a chthonian, a Chosen of the Old One.
Stones spun through the air, narrowly missing her. The mob's words were still incomprehensible, but there was no mistaking the rage and threat in that animal roaring. She cried out as a rock struck her shoulder.
"Uls!" Verk yelled. "Cover my left!" He thrust the whip into Frena's hand and drew his sword.
She thrashed the onagers and screamed at them to go faster. The stubborn brutes were distracted by the dogs, more inclined to kick and bite than run and draw the pack after them.
"I still don't understand!" she said as calmly as she could. The Old One, Mistress of Darkness, was named Xaran, but that name was never spoken except in holy rites, lest it summon Her. The Chosen were Her agents, supposedly workers of evil. Yet it was very hard to see evil in that helpless victim dangling under the tree, or holy Demern's justice in this brute horde.
"He belongs to the Evil One." The swordsman yelled more oaths at the onagers. He was trying to shield her as rocks and sticks rang on his metal scales and thumped against the sides of the chariot. "She sent him. They have covered his eyes lest he afflict them with evil, and gagged his mouth to stop his curses. They must send him back to Her who sent him, laying him facedown in the ground and covering him with good earth. Do you want to share his grave, mistress?" He goaded the onagers with his sword, but missiles were striking them, too. Braying with rage, they lurched into a full gallop.
Frena's arm was bleeding, and she'd have a nasty bruise there soon. If one sharp stone could hurt this much, what had the man under the tree endured already? Or her mother, who had been waylaid by an unknown mob of thugs outside her own front door, and beaten so badly that she had died a few days later? At least she hadn't been buried alive! Blood and birth; death and the cold earth...
Now a raging, screaming mob was pursuing her as the two chariots squealed and bounced away from accursed Bitterfeld. Nimble youths were closing the gap, and some were armed with poles. Although they were only skinny, near-naked shepherd boys with wild, shaggy hair, as they drew nearer Frena thought she would rather be chased by a pack of hungry catbears. Everyone knew that madness came from holy Eriander, not the Old One, but surely the bloodlust and hatred in those boys' eyes was pure evil? Fortunately the onagers, having decided to run and not fight, were going as fast as they could; now all the snarling and snapping just made them try harder.
Uls had pulled alongside them on the left, but the pursuers were n
ot much interested in him. They wanted the girl with black hair, dark eyes, and brown skin. Many townsfolk in Skjar considered such coloring unlucky. Frena had been cursed in public more than once and out here people were even more superstitious.
Journey had become nightmare, a pleasant drive a flight for life. Again she lashed the onagers. Two youths were closing in at the back of the chariot, evidently intent on grabbing Frena. Another was running alongside, staying out of Verk's reach and trying to strike him with a pole. Verk parried repeatedly, but the bouncing of the car made both attack and defense matters more of luck than skill. If that pole caught Frena with a crack on the head, she would be sharing a stranger's grave.
She felt a tug on her fluttering robe, but Verk was not so distracted that he missed the move. He swung. The boy screamed and went down in blood. His companion tried to board in the confusion and met the same fate. A staff rang on Verk's helmet. Older men were arriving, carrying larger poles, and they were more dangerous, trying to spoke the wheels or break the onagers' legs while staying out of reach of the swords.
But even hardy hill folk could not outrun onagers for long. One by one they gave up and slumped to the ground. When the last of the dogs had disappeared, Frena glanced back along the trail of crushed grain she had left from the village, confirming that the chase had been abandoned. So she was safe, and could now take time to admit to a whirling heart and sick terror. The exhausted onagers dropped from a trot to a walk.
"It's all over," Verk said. He put an arm around her, and she realized that she was weeping. She was not sure which shocked her more—her weakness or his brazen presumption. But she let his arm stay there while she dribbled tears on his shiny scales.
The chariot stopped.
"I was a fool. It was my fault for not listening to you. I'm sorry. And I'm very grateful to you and Uls."
"Aee! Just doing our duty, mistress. Saving our own skins also. That's never hard."
She swallowed and wiped her eyes with the back of her She was trembling quite disgustingly. "My mother... She had two swordsmen with her when she was attacked."
"Hadn't heard that," Verk growled. "What happened to them?"
"No one knows. They must have run away."
"All bark and no bite isn't worth table scraps."
She pulled free of his arm. "My father will reward you well."
Verk pouted. "Happy ending won't excuse bad start."
"You're right. It would be best if Father never heard about it."
"Aee! The onagers don't speak much, but Uls...
Uls!?" Uls was sagged limply over the rail of his chariot. His brother leaped down and ran to help.
♦
The hills dividing Lake Skjar from Ocean had once been famed for their forests of cloud-combing hemlocks. It was written in the Arcana that arrogant mortals had used the timber to build themselves houses fit for gods, and holy Demern had removed the trees until mankind learned humility. Apparently that had not happened yet, because the Bright Ones had not returned the trees. The sunburned slopes were barren, fit only for pasturing ibexes, and the only memorials to their former glory were a few fragments of giant roots wedged in the rock.
At a division in the trail, Verk reined in his chariot and waited for Frena to bring hers alongside. He had been driving Uls, whose arm had been shattered by a blow from a staff. Although Verk had bound it up with the strap of his scabbard, Uls was obviously in agony—his face ashen, the immobilized limb swollen and discolored against his mail vest.
One branch of the track wandered on along the hillside; the other headed down toward the shore, where a narrow strip of flat land showed a startling green. The lake spread out beyond, a bright expanse of blue that met a sharp horizon speckled with storm clouds like puffs of mold on week-old bread.
"Onager ranch down there, mistress—By-the-Canyon."
"Yes. Father owns it." She was weary from the journey and still depressed by the horrors she had seen at the village. She kept thinking about the ghouls and their victim, wondering if they had finished burying him yet. Had he truly been a Chosen, or as innocent as her mother?
"The bouncing is hard on poor Uls," Verk said. "And the teams are tired. If we leave them all down there, I can drive you home now and come back tomorrow with help."
Normally Uls protested loudly at any suggestion that he be parted from his brother. He was beyond even that now.
Frena said, "He will be missed. If we can go on to the city, we can take him to the House of Sinura." She could have the cut on her arm healed at the same time. Cost was no problem to Horth Wigson's daughter. "I would just as soon not worry my father by mentioning what happened." He had so many worries!
Verk said, "There is also the matter of the sword, mistress. It's a poor swordsman drops a precious bronze sword and forgets to pick it up."
"Can't we stop somewhere and buy a sword?"
Silence. Verk was staring at her, and for some reason she felt her face burn all the way up to the roots of her hair. How dare he look at her like that!
Finally he said, "Aee! I am a lucky swordsman today."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that when your father hired us he made me swear on the Arcana that I would tell him when anyone offered me gifts. He swore on the shrine of Ucr that he would give me thrice. So now I get three swords I can sell?"
"Me? Bribe you? You dare accuse me of ..."
But he had dared, and she had tried to bribe him. She looked away, unable to meet his cold stare. More furious at herself than at him, she said, "Let us get Uls down to the ranch house quickly."
♦
So it was that Uls was dosed with poppy and put to bed, the weary onagers led away to be fed and watered. Frena herself was granted refreshment with all the deference due Horth Wigson's daughter. Rested, she drove off along the trail with a fresh team and Verk as passenger once more.
"I was not trying to get you impaled, Verk." She studied the road ahead. "I just want to keep Father from being worried unnecessarily."
"My lady is kind." His tone was so flat she could not tell if he was mocking her. "I know of a swordsman who failed to save his master and the master's wife had the man skinned. Aee! It was sad."
"I am sure Father will not skin you. I would just as soon not tell him. He would be very upset." He would be devastated. Horth, who now rarely went anywhere, in his youth had made the arduous, hazardous trek over the Edge to the Florengian Face. This had been long before Stralg's invasion, when the trail was less used and even more difficult than it was nowadays. Horth had returned with precious trade goods that had formed the foundation of his fortune, but he had also brought a wife, Paola Apicella, the only love of his life. Rich men were expected to keep concubines, sometimes junior wives, but there had never been a hint of another woman for Horth, even after Paola's death three years ago; never a whisper among the servants. A brutal and senseless mob attack in the streets of Skjar had killed her. He must not learn that the same sort of mob had so nearly claimed his daughter.
Verk said, "I spoke in haste, mistress. How can we explain Uls's absence? My brother is a simple soul, yet I am fond of him. I do not wish to see him skinned."
"Stop ranting about skinning! No one skins anyone in Skjar. He fell out of his chariot when the axle pin broke and the wheel came off." A white lie, surely, told without malice, just to save her father needless anxiety?
"Aee! Then the wicked stableman who mounted the wheel must be beaten."
Frena opened her mouth indignantly and closed it again. That might be true. All this talk of punishment was strange to her. She had never considered a life where such things might happen. "It was my fault. I set too fast a pace and Uls's chariot overturned on a rock."
Verk's pale face twisted under its lawn of golden stubble as if wrestling against a smile. "And what sort of guard would let you be so foolish? Aee! I will be impaled most surely."
"Stop that! You know perfectly well that Father orders no punishment more than the
law allows."
"Forty lashes for a man of my age," Verk said sadly. "But who counts? A court will surely judge a sturdy swordsman fit to bear more anyway. Who will employ him when he bears such scars?"
"Then a thunderbolt startled Uls's onagers and they ran away with him. That can happen to anyone."
Verk nodded judiciously. "The master might consider a broken arm punishment enough for that. But I should not have let you drive close to the villagers, so I must throw myself at his feet and beg for my life."
"It was my fault! I will not let him punish you."
Verk said, "My lady is kind," again, with very little conviction.
♦
When they came to the place where the Skjar River drained out of the lake, Frena yielded the reins to Verk. Soon walls rose on both sides to form the twisted gorge called the Gates of Weru. There, on uncounted rocky islands, stood the greatest trading city in all Vigaelia. When the stream divided into a dozen dancing torrents, the road left the bank and headed across First Bridge to Bell Song, uppermost island of Skjar. Soon the air was too wet and hot to breathe. Frena felt like a fish in chowder, already. Verk chose to go by way of High to Milk Yellow.
Skjar was a web of bridges. Some crept over the water from rock to rock, writhing and humping like snakes. Others were giddying, rope-bound catwalks strung between the summits of rocky spires. Some were mere planks too narrow for two pedestrians to pass, others had sprouted double rows of stores and houses along their length.
From Milk Yellow to Snakeskin and Egg ...
Some islands were wide and relatively level, others were rocky spires with dwellings adhering to their sides like bizarre fungi and spreading outward from the summits in mushroom caps. Skjarans considered any rock above the waterline to be potential foundation for something, even if only the pier of a bridge, and any group of three or more was enough to support a building.
From Egg to Limpet Bend ...
Skjar was people: carpenters, saddlers, weavers, scribes, brewers, merchants, porters, priests, brass workers, dye makers, and a myriad other crafts. Often among them could be seen Werists in their palls, white-shrouded Witnesses, green-clad Nastrarians, and other recognizable cultists. Mysteries that did not require their initiates to wear distinctive garb must certainly be represented also.