by Myers, Karen
“Not in the rest of the clan—that’s one reason they won’t wed with us. Just in my family. Some of us are… mad. That’s dangerous in a bikraj, so those are kept quiet and controlled. The men still have uses for the women in that condition. They marry them, hoping for children. Sometimes there are daughters, sane ones, to raise for the next generation.”
Penrys remembered Khizuwi’s warning about ways of destroying the mind while leaving the body, and she shuddered.
“Oh, nal-jarghal…” Najud said. “And you escaped this? Were there others who escaped?”
Munraz stared down at the carpet. “There were stories… I had four cousins my age—boys, of course, the girls were kept apart for eventual marriage. We traded stories we’d heard late at night.”
He cleared his throat. “One of my cousins is dead, one vanished—I think he’s probably dead, too. He never came back after a training session with his father. The other two are married and their wives are pregnant.”
He lifted his head and his eyes were bleak. “One of the wives you could even talk to.”
Penrys swallowed, and then said, briskly, “And you were next, eh? Well, we’re both orphans now. It’s not so bad, considering.”
He glanced at Najud shyly and looked back at her. “It seems like a nice family you’re joining, bikrajti.”
“You’ll find one, too, someday,” she told him, with the strongest conviction she could muster.
He flashed a half-smile and drew himself upright, burying his feelings again.
She picked up the much-traveled document and tossed it to Najud. “I think you better read this.”
“I think you’re right,” he said, and proceeded to untie the knotted cords and break the seal. He unfolded two papyrus pages of tidy handwriting, and two paper sheets of different manufacture, one of which had a wax seal in which short ribbons were embedded, while the other had square stamps in red ink along the bottom.
He looked at the odd sheets first. “This is a permit for a biziz, a caravan,” he said, his voice rising, waving the one with the red chops. He read aloud, “For anywhere in the western half of the nation. This permit may be copied anywhere in Kigali, for any caravan owned in full or in part by the Zan Najud, son of Ilsahr, of clan Zamjilah.”
He looked at Penrys. “It’s signed by Tun Jeju on behalf of the King of Earth and Sea.”
Munraz choked, and Najud turned to him. “It sounds less preposterous in Kigali yat.”
He tossed the sheet with the wax seal to Penrys. “Here. Your written Rasesni is better than mine, I expect.”
She unfolded it and looked it over. “Not sure about a couple of the words without that dictionary Dzantig gave us, but I think it’s the same sort of thing. This one’s signed by Menchos.”
“Of course it is.” Najud shook his head. “You should see the letter. It’s marked ‘number 1:3.’ Tun Jeju’s work. Means he must’ve sent at least three copies.”
He thought about that a moment. “One to Jaunor, maybe. This one through the Low Pass to clan Zamjilah. The other one… where? To Ussha? Just in case?”
“What does he want? You didn’t get those permits for free,” Penrys said.
“You. They want you.” Najud read it over twice and handed it to her.
Penrys scanned the letter, then started over and considered it more slowly. “…present yourself and the Ellech woman Penrys to the Office of Imperial Security in Yenit Ping as soon as the first Grand Caravan arrives from sarq-Zannib, or as soon thereafter as may be possible, with the permission of the Circle of Speakers… on a matter of the security of our nations.”
She looked up. “He doesn’t say outright ‘come or you can bid these permits farewell,’ does he?”
Najud smiled tightly. “He doesn’t have to. You ignore something like this at your peril. I don’t say that he could reach into sarq-Zannib for us, not easily, but we’d never be able to visit Kigali again if we refused. Our names and descriptions would be known everywhere.”
He nodded at the letter in her hand. “That’s an order. And these,” waving the permits in the air, “are the honey to sweeten it.”
“But why?” she thought aloud. “I thought it was some peculiar coincidence that we should find another chained wizard after the other one, but now I wonder if they’ve found more of them. What else could it be?”
She looked at it again. “They’re not very urgent about it.”
“We can’t get there any earlier, not realistically. No one travels any distance in winter by choice. We’ll have to get to Qawrash im-Dhal in the east for the start of the first Biziz Rahr into Kigali, in about two months. The Grand Caravan doesn’t leave until the grass is far enough along to support grazing. That’s five hundred miles away, a month in good weather, plus another week or so to visit my family along the way. If we winter here, as I’d planned, that gives us almost a month to prepare. It’s possible.”
He broke off from his calculations to search her face. “But only if you want to, Pen-sha. We could stay in sarq-Zannib, join my family, live a quiet life.” He smiled at Munraz, silent and fascinated. “Train the occasional nal-jarghal.”
She snorted. “And give up your dream of a western caravan? And what about these chained wizards? They must be involved. There’s no other reason they’d want me.”
She folded the letter up carefully and handed it and the Rasesni permit back to Najud. “Well, we don’t have to answer immediately. It’s not like we can get a message to them any time soon.” She turned to their apprentice.
“Any interest in traveling to Yenit Ping and seeing the sights, Munraz? You know, where the iron for your khash comes from?”
CHAPTER 59
Najud sat on his heels by his open pack and considered. The kazr that surrounded him, one of several that Umzakhilin had set aside for their goods and those of the summer encampment, was unheated and dark, its zamjilah covered against the snow. On the bare canvas, partially illuminated where his lantern shone directly, were two small leather pouches and the soft robe embroidered by Rubti for her tigha three or four years ago, a bit worn now by use.
He’d considered his formal ceremonial robes, the only other choice he had, but he’d glimpsed the clothing that Rubti had brought Penrys this morning, from Hadishti—good, clean, robes—but not the sort of thing intended for foreign cities, to represent the pride of his nation. It would embarrass her if he outshone her, and besides—holding the robe up against his newly shaven cheek—this soft robe was suitable enough, and it would delight his nurti, the only family who could stand by him today.
A little more rummaging in the pack turned up his best anah im-ghabr, the turban that could not be omitted for a traditional wedding.
He tied up the pack again, and counted all the packs, his and Penrys’s, stored there, estimating the number of horses he would need. Plus food and fodder, their kazr, and extras, he reminded himself. Then he shook his head and rose to his feet with a creak of the knees. Time enough for that later. There were more important events to focus on, today.
Penrys stood with Najud in the flattened and packed snow that formed the inner circle of the handful of kazrab in the zudiqazd. The whole clan stood with them, dressed in the best of their clothing. They’d had two days to find their goods, retrieved from the summer encampment or stored from the zudiqazd, and they were clean and tidy, the clothing so much fresher than their worn faces and thin bodies that it broke Penrys’s heart to see them.
And they were so few, not even enough to fill the half-perimeter that defined the open space before Umzakhilin and Hadishti who held possession of the center on real, wooden chairs—the first Penrys had seen in Zannib.
*So someone has chairs, I see. Why don’t they use them in the kazrab?*
Najud snorted. *Practically speaking, why burden your horses with something you don’t really need? But the true answer is, it’s something the Kigali would do, elevating themselves over someone else. Only for very serious occasions will you see them in sarq-Zannib. Fo
r matters of weight, when a lisha is needed, a little king.*
He chuckled. *Though we do keep one chair for the use of the Kigali ambassador at the Ghuzl mar-Tawirqaj, the Circle of Speakers, in Ussha. He thinks it’s to honor him, and we don’t tell him what we really think.*
He pictured for her a standing turbaned speaker at the formal assembly of the country, all of his audience seated decorously on carpets, except for one person in a long Kigali robe, proudly occupying a decorated chair with a bored look.
Penrys kept her laughter to herself, and the voices muttering around her quieted as Umzakhilin raised his hand.
Canvas underlaid a small spread of felt pads in front of his seat, and another area of snow-protected felts to the side of the chairs held one of the low worktables, with Bimal and a survivor Penrys didn’t know seated behind it. A pile of the wax-filled tablets that served for temporary records were piled before them. Behind Bimal were Inghiti and Rubti, supporting the dirum and learning from her.
“Who’s that with Bimal?” she whispered to Najud.
“Quyubil, the tarimkaj, law-master. Must be a canny man.”
“Why?” she asked.
“He’s the oldest of the survivors.”
Umzakhilin beckoned Ilzay forward, and the crunch of his footsteps in the snow sounded clearly in the dead silence of the observers. He shouldered the horse pack with the rainbow marking of his clan that Penrys well remembered, and laid it on the felt pads at the foot of the chairs. Another wave of the ujarqa’s hand called forth Khashghuy, with a similar pack. Penrys realized this one must be from the search for survivors between the zudiqazd and the summer encampment.
Ilzay opened the pack and took out one of the pouches that Penrys remembered Najud working on in the quiet of their kazr. He called out the name on it, and a woman stepped out from the onlookers and walked forward. “My father,” she told Quyubil, and he made a note on his tablet. She picked the pouch up reverently, and returned to her place.
Khashghuy took a pouch from his pack, and cried the name, and young Zabrash came to claim it. “My older brother,” he declared, with a wooden face.
Name by name, the morning wore on. Penrys shielded her mind from the silent grief, but the keening that arose whenever a child was named couldn’t be evaded so easily. So many were dead that the same people stepped forward again and again, and the fold of their robes that held the pouches bulged with the collection.
Every now and then the tarimkaj ruled on who the closest relative was, when the more obscure lineages were all that were left alive.
As each of the unidentified ones had been taken out of the packs, they’d been laid separately on the felts. Finally, as the packs were emptied, those were all that were left.
Ilzay opened one and removed its tag. “A man, left forearm broken once.” Three people walked heavily forward to see if they recognized the cloth, and one man claimed it. “My brother,” he declared to the tarimkaj, and choked out the name.
In the end, seven remained unidentified, all children except one. Not even the gender was sure for some of them. Penrys realized it meant that so many of their family were also dead that no one was left who could be sure who they were by the details of their clothing.
Najud stood by her side, his features desolate. His aunt Qizrahi and her son Zaybirs were among the dead in Khashghuy’s pack, and he discovered there were two daughters, new to him, with her. Her husband’s sister claimed them.
Umzakhilin himself had taken charge of his son’s pouch, and that of the son’s wife. Only his white-knuckled grasp betrayed his composure. Bimal, Hadishti, even the tarimkaj—no one in the clan was untouched.
At last, next to the seven lonely pouches, Ilzay laid the two tally horns, and Khashghuy a single carved stick—there had been no survivors to find in Khashghuy’s journey. They spoke quietly to Quyubil about the numbers represented there, and he made notes on his tablets.
There were tears on some of the faces, but everyone waited stoically for the tarimkaj to speak. Penrys surveyed the crowd and saw no one younger than Zabrash and Birssahr, and none obviously older than Quyubil. Their wisdom and their hope, both gone at once. How can they recover from that?
“Ujarqa.”
The word from Quyubil seized everyone’s attention. “I have the tally of the living and the dead, if you would hear it.”
“Speak, tarimkaj.” Umzakhilin’s face was remote.
“Clan Kurighdunaq was, at the time of the summer encampment, two hundred and eighty-four people, all told. We are now seventy-one.”
A suppressed gasp from the onlookers sighed over the snow.
“We are sure of one hundred and eighty-two dead—three in the zudiqazd, fifty-four on the summer and spring trails, and one hundred and twenty-five between the zudiqazd and the valley of Silmat.
“Of the thirty-one remaining, we cannot speak. Most likely they are also dead by the trail, but not found, especially the young ones. But many of these are not children—our recovered clan-kin, and I, believe there may be some still alive in Silmat.”
*I wonder what the count of the Voice’s dead was.* Najud’s mental voice conveyed his bitterness.
Penrys thought of the ease with which she had killed the men of the hill tribe that fought for the Voice. *We’re a bloody lot, aren’t we?*
Najud turned his head to look at her and squeezed her hand.
Umzakhilin spoke to his clan. “I declare the tally correct. We’ll send another party to Silmat in a few days to look for anyone still alive, and to retrieve whatever of our herds may be wintering there. The tally cannot be final until that is done.”
Heads nodded at the statement.
Bimal now spoke for the first time. “I have conducted a tally of the herds, though this will change after the proposed visit to Silmat. I will speak to each of the heirs about what is theirs once they are properly named.”
She cocked her head at Quyubil, seated next to her.
“The total for clan Kurighdunaq as a whole is surprising, ujarqa. We have only lost at most one in four of our flocks, and the expedition to Silmat may improve that significantly. We have all the winter grazing we ever did, so there is no difficulty supporting them, and the harvested spring fodder, as well as some of the autumn. The only problem is herdsmen—I’ll need more to preserve them over the winter.”
Umzakhilin nodded to show he’d heard her. “Tarimkaj, please sort the heirs.”
He looked out into the crowd. “This will be a preliminary declaration, not a final one—that must wait until the Silmat valley is explored. You may not dispose of any property beyond recovery, except for food, until that time.”
Quyubil called out the name of one of the dead, and two men stepped forward, both of them nephews of the man, through different brothers. There was a brief discussion, and the tarimkaj added to his notes and made a declaration.
Penrys was appalled at how long this could go on and glanced at Najud in dismay.
*Don’t worry, Pen-sha. This is just the lineage of inheritance they’re sorting out, not the substance.*
He smiled at her puzzled look. *The tarimkaj is establishing who the heirs are, and to what degree. With so many dead and only obscure relations remaining for some, that is not a simple task. The actual possessions of the dead—their goods and herds—will take much longer to sort out. That’s why the dirum is there, too, taking notes about special animals, breeding lines, and so forth. Since not all the herds are retrieved yet, and more people may be found, it’s subject to revision until it’s finally settled.*
She muttered, “It’s as bad as a legal dispute in Tavnastok, where they grow lawyers like weeds.”
“Why do you think Umzakhilin’s doing this out in the cold snow, when all of them want to go into their kazrab and get warm, and will be quick about it in consequence?”
She smiled at the simple cunning of it.
“And besides,” he said, “these decisions will be settled and final, soon enough. It will be as
the tarimkaj and the ujarqa decide.”
“Penrys, Najud.” Umzakhilin startled her by calling their names. He waved them forward while the steady stream of clan survivors talked to the tarimkaj, and Penrys was careful of her footing with her crutch. He gestured to them to turn around and face the remains of the clan, and stood up behind them to place his hands upon their shoulders, one for each.
“These bikrajab have done great service to the Kurighdunaq, as much as if they had been bikrajab of our own. I have already declared Najud clan-kin to the Kurighdunaq, through his aunt Qizrahi. What shall I do with this foreign bikrajti, soon to be his wife?”
A few voices cried out, “Kurighdunaq!” and heads nodded in agreement.
“Then so it shall be.” He turned them by the shoulders to face him again. “Najud, son of Ilsahr, and Penrys…” he paused for her to supply her lineage, but she shook her head and he continued, “You will always have a home with the Kurighdunaq, clan-kin like any other. You have come to our need, and we will come to yours—you have but to ask.”
Penrys caught a glimpse of Hadishti beaming from her seat, then Najud bowed to the clan-leader in the Kigali fashion, and Penrys imitated him. Umzakhilin sat down again, and when they turned to walk back to their place, Penrys was warmed by the nods of approval from their neighbors.
Najud muttered to her, “This complicates matters, Pen-sha.” There was concern in his voice, but when she looked at his face, he was grinning. “I never expected to marry a woman of such wealth.” He glanced about to see if anyone could overhear his unseemly mirth in the midst of the somber faces.
“What are you talking about?”
*I asked Umzakhilin what he would do about the yathzurazd, the clan’s share. Every legacy donates one animal in ten, or its equivalent, to the clan for distribution by the wife of the ujarqa. It’s a simple way to ensure no one goes hungry.*
*So?*
*So, Umzakhilin admitted there would be many animals whose owners would never be identified. Not the horses, mostly—everyone takes an interest in their neighbor’s horses and can identify them—but the cattle, sheep, and goats are less individual. He plans to distribute those evenly to each member of the clan. That means you, too, now.*