by Kate Elliott
Ilya sank down onto the ground. Deep circles smudged his eyes. “I can’t go on right now.” He covered his face with his hands and slumped forward.
“You have to eat.” She brought him food from their bags.
He took the food but did nothing with it. “You should sleep,” he said. “I’ll wake you.”
“You should sleep.”
“I can’t sleep. I’ll watch.” He shut his eyes again and leaned back, resting against a tree trunk.
Tess rubbed her face. She checked the horses, forced herself to eat, forced herself to refill the water flasks before she allowed herself the luxury of lying down on her cloak three meters behind Bakhtiian, facing the high screen of bushes. Here, in the close wood, the leaves were the brightest green at the tops of the bushes, lit by the sun, shading down to a dark green near the earth, where shadows obscured most of the ground. Encased in gloves, her hands felt almost warm. She fell asleep.
The palace in Jeds looked out over the sea, over the wide mouth of the bay, out toward the islands littering the horizon like so much flotsam cast back to drift. Marco Burckhardt stood alone on the sea wall, watching the waves slide in along the strand and murmur through the hedge of rocks scattered at the base of the wall. Spray lifted in the wind and misted his face. To his left lay the crowded harbor, sailing ships anchored out in the bay, galleys and boats moored to the docks; beyond it, crawling up and down the hills, the fetid sprawl of Jeds itself. And to his right, set a little away from the city in the midst of neat fields, the university, established at least a century ago but transplanted to its new grounds twenty years past by the first prince of the new line in Jeds.
“Admiring your handiwork?” Cara Hierakis came up beside him and slipped a hand into the crook of his elbow. The wind blew the curls of her black hair away from her face.
“My great masterpiece.” Marco grinned.
“I hate to remind you, my dear, but the new buildings were actually built after you died and Charles inherited.”
“I meant my death. I think I engineered it very well, dedicating the grounds and then being crushed under stones in that horrible accident.”
“Yes, you do like coming close to death, don’t you?”
“It’s how I know I’m alive. Although an engineered accident does lack something, especially that frisson of risk. The best part of it was getting to become a new man afterward, with a new face and a new name.”
“Marco, have you ever considered psychoanalysis?”
“Isn’t that outdated?”
“Of all the inhabited planets you could spend your time on, which do you choose? It’s only fitting.”
They stood awhile in silence, watching Jeds.
“I love this city,” said Marco at last. “Because I found it. And don’t tell me the Jedans already knew it was here. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, it was convenient of old Prince Casimund to be on his deathbed and with no immediate heirs but nephews whose mothers had married lords in the other city-states. You never told me how you convinced him you were one of those nephews and the true heir to the princedom.”
“And I never will. You wouldn’t approve. I only did it for Charles, my love.” Cara laughed. Marco looked offended. “You know very well that I didn’t want the position for myself. But we had to get a toehold on the planet somehow. I grasped the opportunity where I found it.”
“It’s true it chafed you soon enough, all that responsibility.”
“Your flattery is boundless, Dr. Hierakis. As well as your cynicism.”
“A good scientist must be skeptical. It isn’t the same.”
The tide was coming in, swelling up under the distant docks. Men worked, tiny figures loading and unloading the ships and the galleys, tying Jeds in to the greater world of Rhui and feeding out goods and knowledge brought forth in the renaissance that gripped Jeds under the rule of Prince Charles the Second, “son” of the late and lamented Charles the First, whose reign had been short but merry.
“A message came in,” said Cara. “That’s what I came out to tell you. Charles got a bullet from Suzanne, from Paladia Major. The Oshaki put in at Paladia Minor and hasn’t stirred for a month. She found no indication that Tess disembarked at Minor.”
“Could she still be onboard the Oshaki? Where do you think she is?”
“I think Charles expects her to be like him, but she isn’t. You can’t make silk out of a sow’s ear. Which is not to compare Tess to a sow’s ear, though pigs are certainly my favorite domestic animals. But I think you grasp the analogy.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t have enough evidence to make a guess. Where is Tess? Why is a high-ranking merchant of the obscenely wealthy Keinaba house loitering on Odys, frittering away his valuable time in endless discussions about the hypothetical worth of Dao Cee’s resources—and in Anglais at that? Why did that shuttle flight follow a most inefficient path? And I will not bore you with the number of questions I have about the human population on this planet, such as, why are they homo sapiens, how did they come to have better health than the humans of Earth’s ancient past, and, if I can solve the antigen problem, can we interbreed?”
Marco stared out at the gray water and the white flash of sun oh the distant isles. “We already know that we can interbreed.” His hands curled, gripping hard on the stone.
“I know, Marco,” she said gently. “I meant, without endangering the pregnant woman’s life. But at least the baby lived. She would have, too, if I could have got to her in time.”
“Sweet Goddess, it was an easy enough delivery.”
“Marco, there was nothing you could have done. You didn’t know about the reaction that set in.”
“I damn well could have not gotten her pregnant!”
“Yes, you could have. One can take this going native business too far.”
“Thank you, Cara. Your sympathy overwhelms me.”
“My sympathy rests with that poor girl. Where do you think Tess is?”
“I think she’s on Rhui. Just a feeling I have.”
“Then why didn’t she come here? Where could she possibly be? Marco, can you imagine the kind of danger she could be in, if that’s the case?”
Marco smiled, but mockingly, without any humor at all. “Yes, in fact, I can.”
The horns woke Tess. She started awake, standing abruptly. A white rump flashed, an animal bounding away into the trees. Twigs snapped. A bird shrieked.
Bakhtiian woke just before she reached him, one hand on his saber hilt, the other open, out in front of him as if he were confused. Tess halted out of range of his saber.
“Bakhtiian?”
He pulled his hands in and looked up at the sky. His eyes followed the invisible trail of the sun to the rim of the western hills where clouds, a low gray sheet stretching halfway back across the sky, obscured its face. Shadows drew long lines across the meadow. “It’s late.”
“I’ll go saddle the horses.” She turned away.
“Tess.” She turned back. “You’ll have to ride Kriye. I can’t handle him with one leg.”
“Who?”
There was color in his cheeks, but that might only have been from his afternoon’s rest. “My black,” he said in a constrained voice.
Tess almost started laughing. “Kriye. That’s what you call a very young boy. ‘Little one,’ but masculine?” He said nothing. “You must admit, Ilya, it’s hardly what one would expect you to name a horse.” Still he did not reply. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” she added hastily. “I think it’s sweet. But what if you can’t ride at all?”
A withering leaf, blown up by an eddy of wind, rolled across his knees. He grabbed it, flinging it to one side. “I can ride.”
“Fine. What do I do with an unconscious man?”
“I don’t faint.”
“Just like you don’t sleep?” Then, seeing his face, she realized she had gone too far, and she quickly left.
Clouds scudded across the farther reaches of sky. The hooves of the horses rang like the echo of a bell on the hard trail. When the clouds reached the far horizon and covered the moon, she had to dismount and lead the horses.
The wind struck when she reached the crest. Her hair streamed back, caught in the flow. In the darkness, she felt as if she were on the edge of an abyss, the world falling away before and behind her. Dark masses of rock loomed around her, the suggestion of ages. She felt very old, knowing that as she stood here, with the wind’s pull like the rush of the planet’s rotation, she was as much a part of the scene as the wind itself.
Myshla shifted. Glancing back, she saw Bakhtiian sway in the saddle. She shook him. Finally he blinked and stared at her. His look of complete confusion frightened her.
“You can faint when we get to shelter,” she snapped. “I could hold out longer than that. I could hold out twice as long.”
“I doubt it,” he whispered, but he pushed himself up.
The wind tore at her clothes as if it was trying to scatter her off the heights. She tugged the horses forward, stumbling down the path. Her boots slipped on pebbles. Kriye’s breath warmed her neck. Her hands stiffened into a tight grip on the reins. Her toes ached with cold.
When the trail gave out on a broad ledge that angled up into a deep overhang, she realized that in the dark she had missed the switchback and taken an offshoot. As she moved forward she no longer felt the wind, only a still presence over her head. She halted and untied the blankets from Kriye’s saddle.
“Where are we?”
“Shelter. For the rest of the night.” She laid out the blankets by the far wall.
She had to help him off the horse. He slumped against her. She let him down very carefully onto the blankets and knelt beside him. She was shivering.
“Ilya?” There was no answer, no movement at all. “Oh Lord.” She rested a hand on his chest. His breathing was regular and even. She sat back with a sigh. She cared for the horses first; afterward, taking two strips of meat, she settled down at the far edge of the overhang. Darkness surrounded her. Soon, she dozed.
A rush of sound startled her awake. It was raining. She sank back against the wall, tucking her hands under her cloak. For a time the rain kept her awake. Later, despite the cold, it lulled her to sleep.
She woke abruptly at dawn, chilled and shivering. Her cheeks and forehead felt warm. No wind penetrated the overhang, a shallow cave eroded from the hill by a millennia of storms. Outside the rain had stopped. Surely such rain would cover their tracks.
She stamped her feet and rubbed her hands together to try to bring some warmth into them. Turning, she caught Bakhtiian looking abruptly away from her. He was already sitting up. Dark circles set off his eyes. A smudge of dirt mottled one cheek. The night had tangled his hair and trapped a tiny yellow leaf in his beard. Unbelted, the tunics bunched and wrinkled at his waist. One sleeve of his red shirt, showing at a wrist, had twisted at the cuff.
“This is all very foolish,” he said.
“You don’t still think I should go on ahead, do you?” She offered him water and food.
“It’s cold,” he said.
She felt her heart race with fear. If he was getting ill from the shock—
“No,” he said, reading her expression. “I’m not—I’m well enough. But the air. Can’t you feel it? It’s the ayakhov, the wind from the peaks. It brings the storms. This shelter can’t possibly protect us.” He halted, just breathing for a while, as if the effort of speaking so much had exhausted him.
“Can you go on? I’ll saddle the horses.”
He shook his head, a gesture compounded half of answer, half of pain. “No.” She waited. “If we’re caught in the open—These storms last days sometimes. You’ll have to scout for better shelter. Even a deeper overhang where we can set up the tent…” He trailed off.
“Yes,” she said, not wanting to remind him that they had no tent with them. “I’ll go now.” She saddled Myshla and left. She rode down into the canyon and half up the other side before tethering Myshla and exploring. By the time she found a good cave, the wind had indeed blown up, cold enough that all her exertion did not keep her warm. She gathered all the brush she could find, arranging the softest into a couch set against the steep-sloping cave wall, and gathered scraps, everything she could find for fodder for the horses, and piled rocks for a corral in the dark recesses of the shelter.
He was asleep when she returned. She unsaddled Myshla and took all four horses out on a long lead, letting them graze and water behind her as she hiked up to the crest. As she had hoped, the rain had swept all traces of their passage from the rock-littered trail. At the height she tried to recapture that timelessness she had felt the night before. But the rocks looked drab, worn away by the weather and the years, and there were too many windblown plants clinging to their surface, a few wilted leaves holding tenuously to branches.
It was cold. Wind whipped the ends of her cloak around her knees. No one was following them. Surely the khaja had given up their search. Turning away, she saw a mass of thick clouds tipped with darkness, sweeping down, almost on her where she stood high and exposed on the ridge. Alarmed, she mounted Myshla bareback and rode back to the overhang.
She found Bakhtiian standing at the entrance, hands clutching his walking stick, staring at her as she dismounted and led the horses under the rock. If he could have looked anything but haggard, pained, and tired, she would have said he looked glad to see her. He had made some effort to tidy himself up. His face was clean, his hair combed, the hunter’s tunics straight and neatly belted.
She chuckled, because the incongruity—of their desperate situation, of the approaching storm, of his appearance—was simply too much.
“Where were you?” he demanded.
“Scouting. I found shelter.” She began immediately to saddle Kriye and Myshla. “The storm is coming.”
“Why didn’t we leave sooner?”
His bad temper irritated her. “You were asleep. And I must say you needed it.”
“I am aware,” said Bakhtiian slowly, “that I am not looking my best.”
Tess laughed and stooped to pick up the blankets he had already rolled up and readied. “Do you know why I like you, Ilya?”
“I can’t imagine.”
She knew she should stop now, but the storm, the danger, his whole attitude, made her reckless. “Because you’re vain.”
He limped across to Myshla. “At least,” he said, tying the blankets to the saddle with hard, efficient jerks, “I am not uncivil.”
“No.” Her whole face burned, with excitement, with fever, with anger—she could not be sure. “That fault will never tarnish your reputation.” She turned back to Kriye and tightened the cinch of his saddle. “Do you need help to mount?”
He cursed, a phrase she did not recognize, and she started around to see that he had already mounted. He clutched the pommel, eyes shut. “Forgive me.” Though his voice was scarcely more than a whisper, she knew he was in earnest. “My language.”
Immediately she felt guilty. “No, I’m sorry. I have a terrible temper.” When he did not reply, she judged it prudent simply to go.
She led the horses out. Drops of ice-tipped rain stung her face. She tucked her braid beneath her cloak and pulled her hood up over her head.
A gust of wind scattered leaves across the trail. Kriye whickered
and tossed his head, and Tess moved her grip up closer to his mouth. The wind dragged at her, pulling her hood back off her head, so cold that it stiffened her joints even as she moved. The trail veered down around a boulder. Tess slipped on a damp stone; only Kriye’s pulling back kept her from falling. Rain spattered her face. All color faded suddenly. She looked up to see the entire sky darken, curling down like a black glove from invisible heights.
“We’ve got to go faster!” she yelled. “Can you hold on?”
He was hunched so far over Myshla’s neck that his hood had not been blown back. “Yes.” The word vanished on the wind.
She mounted Kriye. He sidestepped, taking her into a bush. Branches scraped her leg. She jerked him back onto the trail, driving him ahead. Myshla came forward, and the tarpans, nervous, hesitated and then followed the drag of their lead-lines. The wind swelled. Rain broke over them, hard as pellets, sounding like thunder on the rocks around them. Her head was soaked in an instant. Water blurred her vision.
Finally, finally, they reached the valley floor. She slowed to negotiate a litter of rocks. Water streamed away in little runnels between them. A leaf blew into her face, attaching itself like a damp tentacle. She flinched back, jerked the reins. Kriye shied. For an instant she had all that she could do to control him. A thick gust of rain drove into her from the side. A large branch tore loose from a tree behind them and crashed down onto the path. Myshla bolted.
The mare stumbled on the rough ground and fell, flipping over sideways. She pushed back up to her feet and then, unaccountably, she calmed.
“Ilya!” Tess scrambled down off Kriye, throwing the reins over the black’s head. Rain drowned the landscape in gray. Bakhtiian lay half in a ditch at the side of the trail. Water eddied over his boots. She grabbed him under his arms and tugged him up onto the trail, and knelt by him, pulling him up into her arms. “Ilya!”
His eyelids wavered, opened. He had a cut below one eye, thin and jagged. The brown tunic was ripped. Blood welled up from a scrape on his palm. He mouthed something. She had to lean down. Rain drenched her neck, slipping under her cloak to run down the curve of her spine. She shuddered.