Her rock caught Shivadtmon right where she had aimed, squarely on his right shoulder blade. The aridisdu's incantation halted in a gulp of surprise and pain, but he started again almost immediately.
Firekeeper heard a raven's croak from somewhere immediately above her, recognized Bitter's voice.
"Truth says the tower will not hold much longer. Get Shivadtmon and yourself down."
Firekeeper did not waste breath or motion replying, but some small part of her wanted to wring the raven's neck. Didn't he see she was already doing everything she could? The aridisdu had a knife and he'd already shown himself all too willing to use it on behalf of this weird divinity.
Eschewing safety now, she moved forward, her Fang drawn and ready.
"Shivadtmon!" she shouted. "The tower falls. Come away!"
Shivadtmon wheeled and stared at her in incomprehension, his eyes filled with such intensity that Firekeeper felt scorched.
"Magic herself will bear me away," he said grandly. "I called upon her, and she says the sacrifice is good."
Firekeeper darted out her knife hand and struck the blade from Shivadtmon's own.
"I am to bear you away," she growled. "Truth say. Come."
Shivadtmon looked down where her Fang had scored a thin line across the back of his hand, then raised the hand to his mouth and licked away the blood.
"Perhaps Magic has sent you," he said with insane mildness. "Lead on."
Firekeeper didn't trust the aridisdu to follow, but grabbed him by one wrist and, with her blade pricking reminder at his back, hustled him along to the outer edge of the tower. She wondered how she could carry him down, but resolved to face that problem once they were there. The stones were vibrating under her bare feet and she knew she didn't have time even to worry.
Wiatt had succeeded in steadying Shelby and in getting him to drop his bow. Now both were looking over the edge. Derian's voice came up from below.
"Jump, you idiots. It's your only chance!"
Firekeeper wondered what sort of chance anyone had in a jump from so high onto paved ground, but she understood when she came to her own edge. Harjeedian stood below, and when he saw them, he snapped a command.
Instantly, a wide sheet of something pulled tight, held around the edges by Harjeedian, some of the maimalodalum, a bear, and several wolves.
"Jump!" Harjeedian yelled. "Jump!"
Firekeeper didn't give Shivadtmon time to think. She pushed him, and saw him go over, too astonished to even draw himself tight. Limp was the best way to fall, she reminded herself as she waited for the aridisdu to be gotten off the canvas and it to be drawn tight again.
She glanced over to Shelby and Wiatt. Wiatt was vacillating, but the crumbling of the edge beneath his feet made up his mind for him. He went over the outer edge, his scream of terror high and shrill. Shelby watched him fall, then stood for a moment in contemplation.
He looked at Firekeeper.
"I don't want to explain to the folks about Rarby," he said. "It's all my fault he was here." Turning toward the interior, Shelby jumped into the pit that had already claimed his brother's life.
Firekeeper felt the bile rise to her mouth and incomprehension paralyze her. Blind Seer's howl, deep and filled with desperation, broke into her daze.
"Beloved! Jump! The tower falls! Jump!"
And Firekeeper grabbed on to his voice as if it were a lifeline and threw herself out into space.
Barnet sent up the canvas," Derian explained as he sponged Firekeeper's scrapes. "He thought, well, he thought we might need it to wrap bodies. That's what they do at sea."
Firekeeper, bruised everywhere she wasn't scraped or cut, and sometimes both, hardly cared what anyone did anywhere, but after all the strangeness, she appreciated the familiarity of Derian's very human way of supplying unneeded information.
Humans might be kin to ravens, she thought. That would explain a great deal.
"Tell me," Firekeeper said, "who lives, and who not."
Derian looked as if he'd rather continue talking about burial customs at sea, but he looked at where Blind Seer was licking some of the worst of Firekeeper's scrapes and seemed to realize that if he didn't tell, the wolf would stop his first aid and do so.
"Sky," Derian began, "the first one you sent down, he didn't make it. His head was too badly broken. Wiatt's knee was already a mess, I understand, and he broke a couple bones falling—and when the rocks that fell with him hit him. Still, he should make it. None of the other sailors have been found alive, but some of the yarimaimalom are sniffing around to make sure. The tower's down now, and there's not much danger."
"Rahniseeta? Questioner?"
"Alive, but… " Derian swallowed hard. "Firekeeper, it's still not certain if they'll pull through. Race had shown me how to make a tree-trunk ladder and one of the maimalodalu helped me. I got up that way and Rahniseeta and I got Questioner down. Then I helped her down, but the wall didn't like all that weight leaning against it. That's probably part of what pushed it on its way."
"It would go anyway," Firekeeper said. "Truth say."
"Truth is another problem," Derian said. "She's gone again wherever she went before, and this time no perfume is going to pull her back."
Firekeeper was astonished enough by this bit of knowledge on his part to be momentarily distracted from her fear for Questioner and Rahniseeta.
"How you know this?"
"Blind Seer told Hope. Hope told me. Firekeeper, you didn't tell me about the maimalodalum. They're… incredible. I thought I'd lose my breakfast when Harjeedian and I followed Blind Seer over here and saw, but it's true what they say about need clearing away differences. After a while, all I could see was that they had hands—some of them did, anyhow—and we needed hands more than anything."
Firekeeper remembered hands, the hands that had saved her when she was dying.
"I must see Questioner."
Derian helped her to her feet without comment. Blind Seer gave a long scrape on one leg a final lick and said, "Follow me."
Derian came with them.
"Firekeeper, Rahniseeta said you said something about Questioner being your father?"
"No and yes, not like Colby yours, but I would not live if not for him. Later, I tell all."
Derian nodded.
They found Questioner, Rahniseeta, and Wiatt all on pallets in a ground-floor room of the eight-sided Tower of Fire. Questioner wasn't moving, but a wolf Firekeeper did not know lay beside him holding one of his hand-paws in her mouth, so Firekeeper took hope that he was not dead. Wolves were singularly unsentimental about dead meat.
Wiatt was moaning softly, but seemed to be asleep. Rahniseeta also was asleep, but she made not a sound and her breathing was shallow. Harjeedian sat beside her, looking very worried.
"I gave her something to make her sleep," he said. "She was frantic."
"She was more than frantic," Hope said, coming forth from another room with a pitcher in her hands. "She is burning alive with fever, but refused any treatment until Questioner was helped. He wanted the wolf to tend to her, but she refused and would not accept even what help her brother could give her until we promised all our efforts would go to save Questioner."
Firekeeper understood.
"This wolf—I think Integrity told me of her—she has healing talent?"
"That's right," Hope said.
She poured the contents of the pitcher into a basin and a scent of herbs, among which Firekeeper immediately identified lemon balm, lavender, and chamomile, touched the air. Harjeedian took a cloth and started sponging Rahniseeta's fevered skin.
"Questioner made clear he knew his wounds were severe and that the healer's talents were to go to Rahniseeta, but she refused. She said she'd put him and Sky at risk, and, well, she was making herself worse, so we promised her we'd do as she wished."
Firekeeper realized that one name had been omitted from Derian's account.
"Shivadtmon. Does he live?"
Hope gave her a st
range look.
"He does, and we have him under guard in the Tower of Air. Do you realize… "
She stopped. Firekeeper, who had been moving to get a better look at Questioner and reassure herself that Questioner was indeed breathing, stared at her.
"I not realize anything except I do what Truth say and get him down alive. What?"
"Shivadtmon doesn't have a mark on him, Firekeeper," the bird-woman said softly. "Not a scrape or a bruise, not a scratch or a nick. He's not even dirty. His clothing is a complete wreck, like you'd expect, but his person is unmarred. He keeps going on about Magic taking him under her protection—and it looks as if he may be right."
Dantarahma and the other members of u-Liall were briefed as to the departure of the northerners to Misheemnekuru soon after the earliest services were completed. The news was brought by the iaridisdu and ikidisdu of the Temple of the Cold Bloods, and in their eyes he saw omens that something else was coming. However, they said nothing but that one of their own, the aridisdu Harjeedian, had taken a small boat and was delivering Lady Blysse and several of the yarimaimalom to Misheemnekuru. Derian Carter was sailing with them, but it was left unsaid whether the humans actually intended to go ashore.
As soon as the conclave was adjourned, Dantarahma shut himself in his office and netted a fish from the aquarium he kept there—ostensibly for ornamentation. Such little creatures were not the best for blood auguries, but Dantarahma had become very skilled. He spilled the swimmer's guts onto a clean sheet of vellum, and the manner in which they swirled and the patterns cast by the droplets of blood told him all he needed to know.
Events were not progressing precisely as Dantarahma might have wished. All his planning had depended on no one knowing the intimacy of the link between Shivadtmon and himself. The augury showed that some knew far more than they should—and when the news of the violation of Misheemnekuru became general knowledge, these would share what they knew.
Dantarahma did not have to spill another fish's blood to know that things would not go well for him then. At the very least he would lose his position. He might lose his freedom as well, and there was a possibility that he might lose his life.
But Dantarahma had not been a scholar of omens and probabilities for over half a century without learning to plan for contingencies. The rulers of the little city states to the south included some he counted as friends and allies. He would go to them. There were boats ready in the harbor, and none would question the junjaldisdu taking out the one reserved for him, especially when such a crisis had arisen on Misheemnekuru.
Dantarahma went to his office door and spoke to the clerk on duty. That this one was also an initiate into the mysteries of blood, Dantarahma took as a sign that the deities favored him.
He favored the clerk with a gentle smile.
"Send word to the harbor to have my vessel readied for me. I also wish two other boats of the same class to accompany me. The sails on all must be blue-green, but take care that there are white ones in my vessel's locker as well. If you wish to sail with me, you are welcome. If those who also have celebrated the mysteries make up the crew of my vessel, well and good."
The clerk, a minor aridisdu with a greater talent for administration than for augury, understood.
"All shall be readied, Dantarahma." The clerk glanced at the tide tables pinned to the wall alongside the calendar. "The tides will be favorable for some hours yet."
"Good. I will be in my chambers, preparing the appropriate accoutrements."
As much as Dantarahma longed to leave instantly, he could not. The city-states would welcome him with much more gentility if he did not come empty-handed. Then, too, there were books and papers he would need to continue his work. However, this too he had prepared ahead, for the omens had always been that in this matter he danced on the curve of the moon.
And Dantarahma knew he had time. Those who would oppose him would not confront him without first explaining matters to the other members of u-Liall. These, already distracted by the news about Misheemnekuru, would not welcome further trouble—or not all of them would. He fancied Tiridanti would jump at the chance to bring him down, but neither Noonafaruma nor Feeshaguyu would be so eager. Old Bibimalenu was in his dotage and half deaf besides.
No. He would have time. He prepared fully, and no summons came for him from u-Liall. When the word came that the ordered ships were ready, Dantarahma left for the harbor without haste and with all due decorum.
The divinities had been with him on the matter of finding a crew. Shivadtmon had already assigned many of their allies to the ship that was to carry them north. Dantarahma's clerk had merely reassigned the most devout of these sailors to Dantarahma's smaller vessel.
Dantarahma boarded his chosen vessel in all state.
"Sail for Misheemnekuru," he ordered the captain, "but keep to the southern side. When we are out of clear sight of land, we will change sails and head south."
The ship's captain, long in Dantarahma's confidence regarding these plans, nodded.
"Very good, sir. Winds are fresh and we should be easily away."
Dantarahma smiled and went to the bow, standing proud despite his years, so the people on shore could see him. Spray kissed his face, and he knew the deities were with him.
Elwyn's emerging from the cellar beneath the tower the next morning, battered but not severely injured, his arms overburdened with a rotting sack of jewel-encrusted chains, should have been the most amazing event following the defeat of Waln and the capture of Shivadtmon, but to Derian's way of seeing things, it was not.
Far more astonishing was finding himself seated within the pentagon-shaped center room of the star-shaped Tower of Air taking part in a council that consisted of yarimaimalom, maimalodalum, himself, Harjeedian, and, of course, Firekeeper and Blind Seer.
Rahniseeta was still deep in a drugged sleep, but the wolf with the healing talent—called, with wolfish directness, Healer—was reported as guardedly hopeful regarding her recovery. Rahniseeta's arm was badly broken, and whether or not she would regain full use of it remained in doubt, but all that could be done for her had been done.
Now Healer reclined with her paws before her alongside Questioner. The maimalodalu looked weak, but he had apparently insisted on being present for this meeting. Healer's side touched Questioner's, and Derian wondered whether she was giving him more than physical support.
He wondered a good many things, actually, and had been promised that a few would be clarified here.
Since everyone present understood Liglimosh, the meeting was conducted in that language. The two humans had been assured that whatever the yarimaimalom said would be translated by Hope.
Harjeedian had looked more rueful than Derian had thought possible upon learning that the maimalodalum could translate for the yarimaimalom.
"To think I went north and to all that trouble thinking I would be bringing something new to our land."
Derian was surprised to find himself comforting a man he'd thought he'd always dislike.
"You did bring back something new—I assure you, you won't find more than one Firekeeper anywhere."
Harjeedian nodded. Firekeeper was sitting surrounded by wolves. Blind Seer was at her right, an enormous one Derian had learned was named Dark Death pressed close at her left. A silvery grey female with a splinted leg hovered to the side of Dark Death. It looked as if Firekeeper had a pack of her own, and Derian wondered uneasily if the wolf-woman would be staying here on Misheemnekuru.
Harjeedian was thinking about a matter closer to his own heart.
"The maimalodalum will not commit to saying they will let their existence be known. I think they have grown used to this life. However, they did confirm that the yarimaimalom who have acted as diviners no more willingly led us astray than did any aridisdu."
Derian grinned. Harjeedian hadn't said so, but that answer clearly meant that there had been times when diviners had skewed the answers to their advantage, but on the whole, they wer
e probably honest. That made him think of Truth. The jaguar was not present as far as he could tell, though to him one jaguar still looked much like another. He started to ask Harjeedian if he knew, when Powerful Tenderness, the maimalodalu who blended the qualities of a human and a bear with a touch of reptile, opened the meeting.
"First," Powerful Tenderness said, his voice gruff, "a few matters some of you already know. Last night one of the ospreys carried a missive to Meiyal, iaridisdu of the Horse. In it, Harjeedian reported fairly truthfully the events that had occurred. Omitted were specific mention of the maimalodalum and the role they played. Stressed instead were that the northerners and Shivadtmon had been captured, and that while Derian, Harjeedian, and Rahniseeta were being given leave to stay on the island, that this in no way should be seen as waiving the yarimaimalom's exclusive claim to Misheemnekuru.
"Meiyal sent a message in return. Yesterday morning, fairly early, Dantarahma, the junjaldisdu, took to sea in a boat capable of limited ocean sailing. He was accompanied by two other boats. All flew colored sails, but when the vessel carrying Dantarahma was out of sight of land, it changed its sails to the more usual white. Then, according to the captains of the two boats that were his escort, they were ordered to sail north, cutting in and out of sight from shore among the islands, while Dantarahma's vessel went south. Essentially, Dantarahma has fled. This is being taken as a confirmation of the accusations brought against him by Meiyal on behalf of Derian, who in turn spoke on behalf of Eshinarvash and other of the mainland-dwelling yarimaimalom."
For a long moment, Derian found himself the focus of any number of inhuman eyes. He was uncomfortable in a way he had not been during the numerous crises of the afternoon and evening before, but shook the feeling from him. He'd seen how some of the Liglimom had shied from his red hair and, by their standards, light eyes. Rahniseeta had been inordinately fascinated by his freckles; they didn't happen on her darker-skinned people.
He recalled how she had laughed, confessing that had she known about them she would have been even more certain he was one of the maimalodalum, for the Wise Horses were very often paints or spotted.
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