Deepwood: Karavans # 2

by Jennifer Roberson

  “Except,” Bethid said soberly, “she already tried it. She failed.”

  Jorda was stunned. “She still can’t read a hand?”

  “I told her it may be that she’s injured.” Bethid poured out the dregs of cold tea beside the steps, then shook the mug to rid it of residual moisture and set it on the floorboards. “And it may. She says she’s never been ill nor injured. I don’t know how a diviner’s gift works, but it seems logical to me that illness or injury might interfere.” That prompted a memory. “She had me look for the dream-reader earlier. Lerin. I couldn’t find her.”

  Jorda blew out a noisy breath. “Mikal did. She’s dead.”

  “Oh.” That surprise pinched. “Well, surely there are other diviners here. All of them can’t be dead. You have two diviners in addition to Ilona, don’t you, for your karavans?”

  His expression was grim. “Some diviners were culled by the Hecari. Then we told everyone to go east when the storm came down, but not all of those folk have returned. We can’t be certain they didn’t end up in Alisanos. Others … well, more bodies have been found. Lightning-struck, or crushed by falling trees. One man broke his neck, probably from falling off a frightened horse.” Jorda briefly touched the knot on his forehead, gained in his own fall. His voice was bleak. “Branca and Melior are also among the missing. To my knowledge, after a head count, Ilona is the only surviving diviner here.”

  “Mother,” Bethid murmured in shock. “No diviners left?”

  “One,” Jorda said grimly, “if her gift survives.”

  A chill ran down Bethid’s spine. For a moment she scratched absently but vigorously at short hair, weighing consequences. “Jorda, without any diviners, we’re all of us in danger. If anyone dies, and there are no diviners, there can be no rites. Without those rites, the dead can’t cross the river. They’ll be denied an afterlife. And we have bodies waiting already.” She felt sick to her stomach. “Oh Jorda, we can’t remain here if there are no diviners! We’ll have to leave, all of us, no matter the threat of Alisanos. The deepwood’s not a certainty. Without a diviner, damnation is.”

  Green eyes were dark in low light. His voice was tight. “Then when you make your vow to the Mother not to take unnecessary risks, ask her to rekindle Ilona’s gift. If she is truly the only diviner, the fates of all of us, dead and alive, depend on her.”

  Chapter 14

  ILONA DREAMED OF A MAN. He was distant, and details could not be seen clearly, but she knew he was Rhuan. He came striding straight toward her, as if he knew she was waiting for him, and as he drew closer she realized he was not Rhuan after all. This man was taller, broader, older. But his skin was the same hue, his eyes the same warm cider brown, and he wore his pale coppery hair in ornamented and complex braid patterns. His features were markedly similar to Rhuan’s. But when he smiled, as he did in her dream, no dimples appeared. And she realized, as he smiled, that a flame burned within the man, hot and high. He wore power the way others wore clothing.

  Closer yet he came.

  His apparel was as striking as he was. He wore a tightfitting long-sleeved tunic and snug leggings made of a hide that was only a shade darker than his skin and hair, so that from head to toe he was a glossy pale russet, the color of autumn leaves. The clothing had a sheen to it, as if it were washed in gold, and wet. And then she realized, as the dream became clearer yet, as he walked closer still, that he wore the hide of a beast who was—that had been—scaled. She saw the interlocking patterns now, the delicate juxtaposition of scale overlapping scale. In the light of two suns, beneath a sepia sky, he glowed. But the hide was not ornamented, not as Rhuan’s was, with shells and beads and fringe. The hide, in its clean, simple elegance, in the richness of its color and exquisite patterning, needed no adornment.

  He stopped before her, close enough that she might touch him, that he might touch her. He did not. He smiled into her eyes, then lifted his arms over his head, palms turned up, as if to say “Behold.”

  She looked up, as he meant her to.

  Above him, in the sky, beneath the double suns, winged beasts rose. That they did so to mate, she thought at first; but no.

  To fight.

  Still he smiled at her. “This is for you.”

  JUST BEFORE DAWN, Brodhi was wrenched out of sleep. Images impinged on his consciousness, flooding his mind. He sat bolt upright, staring into thinning darkness, and saw Alisanos. Was in Alisanos.

  No. No. His body remained in the human world; only his eyes were in the deepwood.

  Immediately he knew the instigator. Furious, frustrated, Brodhi clamped both hands over his face. “Curse you, Rhuan!”

  His awareness of the human world attenuated, then snapped. With eyes closed, hands pressed against his eyelids, he nonetheless saw the pale trunks of the dreya ring, the leafy silver canopy spreading high against the sky, the light of two suns glittering among stems and branches. He saw the dappled depths, the shadows, felt a familiarity that reached out to him to yank demandingly at his spirit. He ached with yearning. For too long, much too long, he had been away. Brodhi longed to go home.

  Then the view altered. He saw a booted foot—no, two booted feet—leather-clad legs, punctures in the leggings, and blood.

  And blood.

  The image shifted. Slid sideways. He had a cramped view of bare abdomen, and deep, ragged gashes.

  Rhuan was not only in Alisanos, but hurt in Alisanos. And clearly was asking for help.

  Brodhi already felt the first warning throb of the headache to come. Forced sendings always resulted in such. A moment later his skull felt like someone was pounding a tent peg into it. He leaned forward, clutching his head, and hissed through clenched teeth. “I know …” He swore viciously. “I see, Rhuan … yes, you’re hurt; I see that. I see where you are. Stop.”

  Rhuan didn’t. A sending didn’t work that way. They could not communicate beyond sharing, in silence, what Rhuan’s eyes saw. Ordinarily a sending was indicated by a feathering of inquiry, a request for contact. But when forced upon a man, its repercussions were violent.

  Brodhi thrust himself to his feet, blinded by pain, blinded by darkness, and stumbled forward. He reeled sideways a step, then staggered into the cookfire, knocking down the spit and the remains of the deer carcass. He swore, felt heat beneath his boot soles, and leaped forward to escape the coals. Tripping, he ended up on one knee, one hand thrust against the ground to hold himself upright. The other hand clutched at his brow.

  Dreya ring.

  Torn and bloodied leggings.

  Torn and bloodied flesh.

  He toppled to one hip, then down onto his side. He could not prevent his body’s desperate bid for an interior escape as it curled upon itself. Childlike, he rocked back and forth, trying to stem the pain, or at least to assimilate it.

  Rhuan’s sending ended. Alisanos was gone. Brodhi saw night again, the crescent of Maiden Moon, the first faint thinning presaging dawn. Some distance away, tied to a tree, his horse snorted at him warily. A flood of invective fell from Brodhi’s mouth, and all of it had to do with his kin-in-kind, the fool who’d forced a sending upon him.

  When next he saw Rhuan, if he saw Rhuan, he’d murder him.

  That is, if Rhuan didn’t die of his wounds first.

  Brodhi rolled onto his back. Ground chill seeped up through his clothing, sheathing his flesh. He stared up into the sky, willing the pain to diminish, knowing it would require more time than he had before departing on his journey to Cardatha. He used the moon as proxy for his kinsman. “I’m here, not there, for all I wish our roles were reversed. And if you truly think I would go into Alisanos before my time and risk my ascension, then you don’t deserve to live because you’re too stupid!” Now, he was sweating. He felt sick to his stomach. “If you need help so badly, contact the primaries. Contact Alario. You know the way. You have the means. You don’t want to ascend anyway—what would it matter?”

  But it would. He seriously doubted Rhuan wished to be a neuter any mo
re than he did. Which is why Rhuan had undertaken the sending. It truly was a cry for help.

  “No,” Brodhi declared. “It was your choice to put yourself so close to the deepwood as it went active. As the humans would say, you reap what you sow. I remain here.”

  Rhuan could not hear him, of course. But Brodhi’s decision would be known when he failed to appear in Alisanos, in the dreya ring, and Rhuan would realize his fate was his own to make.

  No, Rhuan would contact no one else for aid. Better to die intact than to live a neuter.

  Sweat was drying on Brodhi’s face. He lay sprawled and very still, afraid to move lest it make the headache worse. There beneath the Maiden he resolved yet again, more determinedly than ever, to become what he so badly wanted—needed—to become. Alario would lose a son, but his brother Karadath would have his son, his dioscuri, who would rise as the sire had risen.

  Ascension.

  THE SENDING WAS done. Rhuan could well imagine Brodhi’s reaction. He did hold some faint hope that Brodhi might shock him and actually answer the plea for assistance, but doubt was foremost. Were Brodhi in the human world, he would not enter Alisanos and risk ending his journey prematurely. He might answer the sending if he were in the deepwood. But Rhuan doubted it. There had been distance in the sending, weakness in the blood-bond that allowed the one-way communication.

  He squinted up through the dreya ring’s canopy, noting the double suns had begun their descent. He did not know if two days had passed in the human world; it could possibly even be a week. What he did know was that he would welcome darkness and the chance to sleep, except that he feared sleep wasn’t possible on two counts: first, he hurt too much; second, he might die. The latter possibility sent adrenaline flooding through him as all his muscles clenched, which in turn set his abdomen afire. No, sleep would not be possible on any count.

  The baby, still wet, still neglected at the foot of the nearest tree, protested with swaddled struggles and increasingly unhappy crying. Rhuan apologized to Sarith because he truly felt bad, but moving to tend her would worsen his situation. Audrun would be back soon. In the meantime, it would not harm the baby to be damp, any more than it would harm his ears to hear her cries.

  He swore a series of increasingly obscene curses through clamped teeth, trying to concentrate on conjured images of quietude and rest. That, too, was impossible. Then he switched to telling over the Names of the Thousand Gods, hoping the devotion and respect he offered might be rewarded; knowing, however, that it was most unlikely, as the primaries would know why he was doing so. False devotion, devotion under duress, was viewed as a time waster. But it nonetheless gave him something to do. Something to distract himself.

  Then fire flared.

  Rhuan could not help himself. He thrust himself up from the ground, turned swiftly and knelt, hunched, bracing himself against the ground with one hand. The other went to his belt, only to discover his knife sheath was empty.

  Audrun. Of course. And she had been right to take it. Conscious, he would have told her to do so.

  He still had throwing knives. But now, as he saw clearly despite the pain in his midriff, he made no move to draw them.

  Just outside the ring, the winged demon stood. Pale eyes showed vertical slits for pupils. Black hair was again neat and shining, hanging past his shoulders. The black hide jacket hung askew and slightly open from his shoulders, baring the scale pattern creeping upward across his flesh from the waistband of dark leggings. Wings were folded against his back. In one hand, he held a lighted torch.

  The dreya ring, threatened, yanked branches as far from the torch as possible. Rhuan felt the fear, the thrumming of tension within the ring. Dreya trees were immune to blight, to insect damage and fungus, but lightning and fire could be devastating.

  The demon smiled. “Give it to me.”

  Rhuan said, “No.”

  In one stride, the demon stood beside the queen tree. Pale eyes were locked on Rhuan’s, which hazed red. An undulation went through the ring again as trees leaned away. In a matter of moments, feeder roots would begin to break free of the earth. In a matter of moments, any protection the dreya offered would end. Not because they surrendered, not because they gave up the child, but because they could not save themselves and the child.

  “This infant,” Rhuan said tightly, “has both a mother and a father.”

  The demon displayed fangs. “I. Don’t. Care.”

  “You were human once. Sancorran, yes? This child is also Sancorran. Sancorran and Alisani.”

  The demon leaned forward, raising the torch higher yet. “As am I.”

  “This child has the protection of the dreya. This child has my protection.”

  The demon laughed. “The latter is worthless. The former? Well, that shall end. See you?” And he thrust the torch up into the gleaming branches of the queen tree.

  Dreya screamed as fire took hold. Rhuan immediately lurched toward the baby, reaching for the small, squirming bundle before the demon could do the same. But his hands and clawed hands closed upon swaddling at the same time. Muslin tore, tiny limbs fell free. Rhuan caught an arm. The demon caught a leg.

  Flame ran up through pale branches into the high canopy. Trunks twisted and writhed. Within moments the crown of the ring was afire. Roots pulled free of the earth. Women, pale and silver, wrenched themselves out of trunk clefts. Rhuan had an impression of terrified eyes, of clothing of mist and starlight, of blazing hair. Sarith, caught in opposing hands, opposing convictions, screamed even as the dreya did.

  Without their trees, all would die.

  “I’m sorry!” Rhuan cried to the dreya, redoubling his efforts to claim the infant. But then a leathery wing slapped into his temple. He was flung aside, slammed into one of the now empty trunks. Within the ring, dreya burned. Above, the silver canopy became a conflagration.

  Rhuan lost the child.

  “Mine,” the demon crowed.

  Crumpled at the base of a burning tree, despite the flames, Rhuan fell into darkness.

  AUDRUN HEARD THE screaming. Smelled the smoke and fire.

  Women screaming. Close by.

  Instinct nonetheless made her kneel, made her carefully set aside the melon-bowl of water. Then she ran.

  O Mother, O Mother, no …

  She ran, and came almost immediately upon a firestorm. Stunned, she found the ring ablaze. Saw woman-shaped pyres. Saw a roof of flame. Rhuan, unconscious. And a demon taking flight, cradling a baby.

  No. No. No.

  Yes. Oh, yes.

  Burning brands and branches fell into the ring. Dead dreya, still ablaze, collapsed into smoking heaps at the bases of their trees. Rhuan, too, was threatened, blind and deaf to all. Fire fell from the sky.

  The baby.

  Gone.

  “Mother of Moons!” Audrun cried.

  But this was Alisanos.

  The baby was gone. The trees were afire. The dreya were dead. Rhuan wasn’t.

  Rhuan.

  Audrun ran. She caught up a wrist, clamped her hands closed, and pulled. His body gave barely at all, slumping sideways. Audrun yanked. She set her booted feet, drew a huge breath, and yanked again and again. A sustained pull she could not manage; he was too heavy. But panic gave her strength and a desperate determination. Grunting, gasping, gripping his bare wrist, she pulled again, yanked again, tugged at him. From above sparks flew. All around her lay the remains of dreya, of women she’d never met but who had protected her child as best they could. Dead now, their trees ablaze, the child stolen.

  Audrun cried out in extremity, expending all the strength she had left. She had moved him possibly six feet. Too close, too dangerous; the trees, she feared, would burn through and fall upon them.

  “Rhuan! Rhuan!”

  He lay sprawled on his back, one arm outstretched.

  She leaned down over him, placed a boot on either side of his torso, and wrapped both fists into his tangled braids. “Wake up! Wake up! I can’t move you!” By the braids, sh
e shook his skull. “Wake up!” Behind her a branch fell in a whoosh of heated air. Desperate, Audrun placed one hand against the wounds in his abdomen. Gritting her teeth, she plunged two fingers into a gash. “Wake up, curse you! Do you want all of us to die? The demon has my baby and we’re about to burn!”

  The invasion of her fingers brought him abruptly from unconsciousness, crying out in pain. Eyelids flickered.

  Audrun smashed the flat of her hand across his face, bloodying his nose.

  “Now,” she shouted as she saw glazed brown eyes upon her. “Now, curse you, move! Move! Move!”

  Rhuan rolled as if to rise. Audrun hopped out of his way. On hands and knees, bloodied braids dangling, he made every attempt to crawl.

  “Yes!” she cried. “Go!” She caught an upper arm in both her hands, setting nails into flesh as she urged him onward. “I can’t drag you! I can’t! Ah, Mother, lend him strength!”

  He wobbled. He crawled.

  “Yes!” Audrun shouted.

  Rhuan was out of the ring. Behind him, tumbling down in gouts of flame, more branches fell. Audrun put up a hand up to shield her face against the upsurge of heat. Then, seeing him wavering, failing, she reached again and closed both hands around a wrist. In fear, in panic, in utter desperation, she yanked as hard as she could.

  His body followed so fast she sat down hard. And she knew, meeting his eyes, acknowledging the failure of her own body as well as his, that they were both of them done. No more. No more. He was too badly hurt, and she had birthed a baby earlier that day. Audrun sat with legs spread, knees bent, leaning against arms braced behind her back, and sucked in air again, again, again. She had no strength for tears, nothing at all for words. All she could do was try to fill her lungs.

  Rhuan levered himself onto hands and knees. She saw how his arms shook. He twisted his head and looked over a shoulder at the ring. Then he looked at her. “It won’t…” he said, “can’t…”