“You?” One eyebrow rose again. “You shall deal with us? And how will you do so?”
“As children,” she declared. “How else? I’ve seen such behavior before … in spoiled children. I think it will prove no more difficult than dealing with arrogant bullies, gods or no.”
Rhuan laughed softly. “I’ll place a wager on that!”
Alario was far less amused. Audrun saw a flicker of red in his eyes, a faint deepening of the pale coppery hue of his skin. Power purled off him like fog. “Little human—”
She cut him off. “Actually, I’m not. I’m somewhere in the middle, when it comes to the height of human women. My name is Audrun, and while I am not a primary, I am a wife and mother. I am a child of the Mother of Moons, and a woman of Sancorra. I have been brought to the deepwood very much against my will, and I shall not accept that I am helpless, inferior, and at your mercy.”
Alario deserted his pose against the tree and stood upright. His posture was alert, prepared, and quietly intimidating. “You will not?” He tilted his head a little, as if evaluating her from a different angle. “But you should. You very much are helpless, inferior, and at my mercy. And as my get will tell you, I am entirely ruthless.”
“He doesn’t need to tell me; I can see that for myself. Ruthless or not, the fact remains that you cannot force me to marry simply because you wish to.”
“I don’t have to,” he said, amused. “You’ve done it yourself.”
Audrun was unfazed. “And now, shall we return to the question of whether you are a god?”
“I am a god.”
“Because you say so?” Audrun scoffed. “Any number of people may call themselves gods. It doesn’t mean they are.”
Rhuan sounded uneasy. “Audrun—”
She thrust a silencing hand into the air, never taking her eyes from Alario’s. “I will settle this, here and now. I wish to see proof. Have you proof to offer me, primary?”
He walked directly to her, stationing himself to throw her into the shadow of his person and power. “And what would you consider proof, little human?”
Audrun stood her ground, meeting him eye to eye despite the disparity in their heights. “You will, this moment, find my husband, my children. You will retrieve my youngest—just an infant in clouts—from a winged demon who stole her from us even as he set fire to the dreya ring that sheltered us. Then you will transport all of us to the Kiba, where I will explain how I came to take Rhuan’s braids down, and then you will send all of us safely home to our own world, unchanged in any way.”
Both brows lifted. “All of that?”
“Every bit of it.”
Alario grinned. She marked again the absence of dimples; the absence, also, of honest amusement. His was ice and edges. “No.”
“Because you can’t.”
“Oh, I can.”
“If you could, you would.”
Alario burst out laughing. “So predictable, Human Audrun. That argument might be effective in your world, but here it carries no weight. I have nothing to prove. Ask my get. He will tell you.” The grin remained as his eyes flicked to Rhuan. “Do tell her, won’t you?”
“Show me,” Audrun demanded. “You. Here and now.”
But she had lost Alario’s attention. He focused now on his son and changed the subject. “Your journey is ended. All that’s left now is for the primaries to make it official, and discuss the timing of your disposition.”
Rhuan shook his head. “You may see it that way. But you are one vote. As Audrun has mentioned, there are nine hundred and ninety-nine others to be cast—and you have your share of enemies.”
Alario stepped away from Audrun and closer to Rhuan. He stood before him, staring at him, and Audrun felt the trickle of pure, unalloyed power in his wake. His voice, however, was very soft. “You are not fit. Not fit to be dioscuri, not fit to be my heir.”
“Perhaps that’s best,” Rhuan replied, “as I have no desire whatsoever to be your heir.”
“I should have had you exposed at birth.”
“And what then would you have done—abducted another human woman to bear your dying seed?” Rhuan shook his head. “The others would never have allowed it. Only one dioscuri has been born to you in hundreds of years. That speaks poorly of your potency, as I have no doubt your enemies realize. Surely word is being passed from one to another that Alario has a fatal weakness. I am very probably the last dioscuri you’ll sire. You need me to retain your place among the other primaries.” Rhuan’s smile was thin and edged. “After all, Karadath has Brodhi. Without me in the stewpot, the seasoning you provide is weak. Your brother’s will be stronger, and he may ascend to your place because of it. That, you could not bear.”
Alario began to circle Rhuan, holding his eyes as he did so, until Rhuan had to break off because he could twist his neck only so far. Alario halted in front of him again. He leaned in, sniffed briefly, then withdrew, smiling. “You are weak. The weak are culled by the strong.” Without warning, he caught hold of the hair tied at the back of Rhuan’s neck and the neck itself, forcing Rhuan’s head into a taut, uncomfortable position. Alario bared teeth in a threat display no less effective because he lacked fangs. His voice was pitched low, very nearly a whisper. “Other primaries may well indeed be my enemies, but you they will never support.”
ILONA ORIGINALLY PLANNED to set up her low, lacquered table outside along with the seating cushions for the farmsteader’s visit, as she usually did for hand-readings. But as she rose to do so, she realized that would require more strength than she had. Instead, she spread a blanket on the ground at the foot of the wagon steps, sat down on the bottom step, and, when the farmsteader arrived, asked him to sit on the blanket. He evinced mild surprise, but only because when she’d read his hand before, the arrangements had been different. He sat down without hesitation and offered his hand, palm-up.
Before she touched it, she looked into his face. He was weary, tense, grimy, and needed a shave, but what lived in his eyes was desperation and despair, not anger, not hatred. He truly believed Rhuan had sent his family into Alisanos, but the root of that belief was fear, and misplaced logic.
Ilona addressed that. “I must tell you: I read true.”
The blond man blinked, puzzled. “I know that, else I wouldn’t be here.”
“And if what I see disproves your conviction that Rhuan acted with the intention of sending your folk into the deepwood?”
A muscle leaped briefly in his jaw. “You’re a diviner,” he said. “You’ve been touched by the Mother, to have such a gift. I put my faith in you. Tell me what you see, good or ill.”
“Very well.” Ilona placed her right hand beneath his, cradling it. Her left she rested lightly atop his palm. There were several methods for reading hands, but actual contact was the most effective. It also relayed high emotions, occasionally too high, so that it was difficult for the hand-reader to disengage. But Ilona felt this particular reading called for contact because the farmsteader’s emotions and thoughts were in upheaval, and she herself was anxious because self-doubt had seeded itself in her soul.
There was blockage, familiar and frightening blockage, as she sank her awareness into his. At first she recoiled in dismay, but then the blockage abruptly bled away. It opened many doors before her, allowing her entrance. She went through, then down and down, deeper and deeper.
Images began to form. None of them were clear enough to read, merely sparks here and there, flashing like fireflies. She felt the grief, the worry, the fear, the determination that he must and would find his family, as well as the acknowledgment that it was possible he could not. That was the terrifying conflict in his soul, the besetting fear that his life was forever altered, forever to be blighted.
The jittery images steadied, slowed. She found them one by one, began to sew them together in her mind, assembling the squares of a quilt, the fabric of his future. She evaluated, then stitched, or discarded. Took up another square of cloth, examined it, set it
beneath the silver needle in her hand. And when all the squares were found, discarded, or sewn, the quilt at last was whole.
Ilona opened her eyes. She saw that the farmsteader, too, had closed his. She pressed his hand briefly, then withdrew hers. It jarred him back into the world. He closed the hand and held it against his chest as if what it contained was the rarest jewel.
What she had seen made no sense to her. Part of her wished to doubt. But the images had been infinitely clear. She could not mistake what she had seen, surprising as it was. “Brodhi,” she said. “Somehow, Brodhi is the key.”
His brows knit. “What?”
It still, to her, seemed unbelieveable. “Brodhi is the key. Not Rhuan.”
“Did the guide act with intent?”
“He did not. He, too, is trapped.” Her mind said, And Rhuan is gone. It took effort not to let her own pain show itself, but it was required. This was his reading, not her own. “Your wife and children are in the deepwood. All are scattered, save for the two youngest. With them, the youngest, is Brodhi.” Ilona drew a breath, knowing the next would be difficult. “She had the child, your wife. The baby is born.”
It stunned him utterly. “Our baby? Audrun’s and mine? But it isn’t due yet! It’s too early!”
“The child was born at full term.”
“It can’t be … Audrun isn’t due for four more months!”
Ilona saw no way of softening the blow. “She’s a child of Alisanos, not wholly human.”
“The—my baby? Not human?” Color washed out of his face. “But she’s mine! She’s Audrun’s! How can she—she?—not be wholly human?”
“She was born in Alisanos.” Ilona tried to gather words that were least hurtful. “This is why … this is why fifteen diviners said she must be born in Atalanda. None of us knew why, but that much was understood. Now, the image is clear. Your newest is born, but born in Alisanos. The deepwood has laid claim.”
“Blessed Mother…” the farmsteader whispered. “O Mother of Moons …” His face was oddly devoid of all expression, as if so many emotions clamored for release that none could find the way to the muscles of his face. “What—what am I to do?”
“Gather them up,” Ilona told him. “Find the way. Find your family. It’s vital they be found soon, if they are to remain human. As each day passes, they all become less so.”
“But how am I …” He let that go, moving to another concern. “Who is this Brodhi?”
“Shoia,” she answered. “Like Rhuan; his cousin, I believe. Brodhi’s a courier. I see him there, in Alisanos. He is the key.” She turned up her own hands, displaying empty palms in a gesture of helplessness. “I can’t tell you why this is so, only that he is.”
His gaze unfocused as he stared into distance, the farmsteader rubbed a broad hand through his hair, sleeking it back against his scalp again and again. “But who would agree to go into Alisanos on purpose? I would, of course—I plan to—but I thought to make the guide, Rhuan, take me there—”
Certainty shaped her words. “If you go, you are lost.”
“But—”
“Brodhi is the key.”
Now he rubbed his face with his hand. “How does one convince a stranger to enter Alisanos? I have no coin to speak of. He knows nothing of me or my family. Why would he go?”
Ilona said again, “Find the way.” Then a wave of exhaustion swamped her, one so powerful she nearly lost her perch upon the step and tumbled to the ground. She clamped both hands on the edges of the steps. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave now … I must rest.” Dizziness assailed her. “… sorry …” She tried to rise and nearly pitched forward into the farmsteader’s arms.
“Here, here, let me help.” He closed hands on her upper arms and steadied her, helped her rise and turn. “Is your bed inside?”
“It is …” As he helped her to climb, Ilona grabbed either side of the doorjamb and clung. Without his aid, she knew she would collapse into a puddle of abject exhaustion. “Just inside …” Oh, Mother, she was weak! The world appeared to be slipping sideways.
“Here. Lie down.” He guided her to the cot atop the chest of drawers, ducking roof-ribs. “I’ll send someone to you.”
Ilona sat down, leaned, then collapsed into bed. She clamped both hands over her face. “Blessed Mother …”
“This is my fault,” the farmsteader said. “I shouldn’ have asked this of you.”
“You didn’t.” Ilona parted her hands just enough so that her mouth was clear. “I offered.” The dizziness was worse. It unsettled her stomach. She began to think the nightcrock was in order, and she wanted no witness for that. She opened her hands, noting that the farmsteader looked more worried than ever. “Yes,” she said, “do send someone to me.” Just so he would leave, and she’d have some privacy for a few moments. Inspiration occured; she knew it would require more of his time than calling for Naiya. “Go to Mikal’s ale tent. Bethid might be there. The woman courier.”
“I will. Yes.” The farmsteader exited hastily.
Ilona covered her face again as sweat broke out on the surface of her skin. Her mouth dried. She made a very long petition to the Mother to settle her belly, if only to distract it, then turned on her side and pulled up her knees. In one of the drawers below was a small bag of tea that would quiet the nausea, but she felt too ill to make the effort.
“This is not fair,” she murmured. “Not fair at all.”
And yet there was ironic humor in it: Her gift had returned, and she couldn’t celebrate.
ALARIO’S HAND, LOCKED into his hair and the base of his neck, infuriated Rhuan. He wanted no physical contact with his sire at all. But before he could speak, before he could react other than grit his teeth in surprise, Alario released him, pushed him aside. “She’s broken through,” the primary said.
Rhuan, putting distance between himself and his sire with pronounced alacrity, frowned. He exchanged a quick glance with Audrun, who was equally puzzled.
Alario’s awareness was patently not of either of them, but of somewhere very much different. His eyes were full of distances. “She’s stronger than I thought.” Abruptly, with no further speech, he turned and strode into the shadows, disappearing amid trees and brush.
Rhuan stared after him, aware that Audrun did the same. After a long moment of considering silence, they broke that pose and looked at one another, brows raised. Rhuan sighed, managed a wry smile, and tried to make light of it. “Not the kind of father human sons desire.”
Audrun was clearly appalled. “Is that behavior typical?”
“With primaries? Unfortunately yes.” He sat down upon the fallen tree, feeling at the back of his neck where Alario’s fingers had dug in. “And yes, all of them are every bit as arrogant as my sire. Imagine, if you can, nine hundred and ninety-nine exactly like him.”
“That’s impossible, Rhuan.”
He worked the muscles at the back of his neck. “Impossible to imagine, impossible to accept, or impossible to be true?”
“All three, I think! He truly is very like a spoiled child.”
“But a remarkably dangerous child.”
Audrun, too, sat down, placing herself beside him. “Could he have done as I asked? Found my family, transported us to the Kiba?”
“I think it’s quite probable. But I’m ignorant of all he can do … we’re reared that way, to not know the extent of the primaries’ ability to manipulate the wild magic.”
“Why? Aren’t you his heir?”
Alario’s grasp had loosened the leather thong tying back his hair. Rhuan removed it, allowed the coppery curtain to fall forward of his shoulders. He glanced at her a moment, registering her genuine curiosity, then looked back at the dreya ring. The odor of charred wood wreathed the air. “It’s different here.”
“That, I understand.” Her tone was ironically acerbic. “But if you are his only surviving dioscuri, and he is unlikely, from what you said, to sire any others, why does he hold you in such con
tempt?”
He winced; that truth was painful. “Primaries are extremely long-lived. It’s a facet of the wild magic. They manipulate it to suit them, and longevity is a part of that. But the only one who knows how much he or she can manipulate, and exactly what can be done, is the individual primary. It’s an advantage, obviously, but it’s also a weapon.” He blew out a breath and looked at her full-on. “For me to inherit my sire’s place, I am required to kill him.”
Audrun’s lips parted. He saw the shock flow into her face, the widening of her pupils. She was not slow of wit; she grasped the consequences immediately. “And you can’t.”
He shrugged. “That, I don’t know. It’s possible. When the time comes upon a dioscuri, he often has no choice. He challenges because he must. It’s a physical and emotional drive, more powerful than any other. Even the need to procreate, though that’s interrelated.”
“To pull down the strongest so he can make a place for himself … and to sire his future replacement.”
“It’s the central defining conflict of our people. Primaries are driven to sire offspring so dioscuri are born—though not many are—and yet from the moment of that birth the sire and the son are locked in competition. The dioscuri is a threat, a promise of the primary’s ending.”
“Do dioscuri always win?”
“Oh, no. Not in the least.” He gathered his hair into a tail and tied it off. “Quite often the primary kills his own son.” Then, as Audrun stared at him in shock, he rose, caught her hands, and pulled her to her feet. “And now, it’s time we went looking for the Kiba. We can do nothing here except further discuss my sire’s shortcomings, and while that would undoubtedly fill weeks and months, as humans reckon it, it’s not particularly productive.”
Chapter 26
BRODHI AWOKE IN the middle of the night to the awareness, sharp and intense, that someone knelt by his pallet in the sleeping chamber. There was no light whatsoever and there wouldn’t be until dawn broke, but he needed none. He moved swiftly and grasped a wrist. When he heard quiet laughter, he gripped more tightly.
Deepwood: Karavans # 2 Page 23