Rowan also drew all this. It was easy to do. The moths’ light was now bright and steady.
When demon-voice came, she checked the location of the talisman without thinking, merely reassuring herself of its presence. It was in its kerchief; she stood ready to reveal it if the demon was a stranger.
It was the Thief. He saw her, paused by the entrance, then made his way toward the groups of utterances. Rowan followed.
He did not go far; and at a nearby group of very small case-objects, he stopped, selected one, set it on the ground before her.
A canted cone, striated, with tiny projections on the point.
She spread her hands uselessly. “I don’t understand.”
The Thief replaced the object, walked toward her, and then past her.
She turned to follow him. “No, let’s try again …”
He stopped. She waited; and then he moved away from her so suddenly and smoothly that she checked the talisman, checked her sword, looked behind her.
The talisman was still hung at her belt, covered. Her sword was sheathed at her back. Janus was nowhere in sight.
At the entrance, the Thief paused again, then exited.
And immediately returned, approached her, paused, backed away again.
No, not backed— demons had no front or back. He was merely walking.
Rowan followed a few steps, paused. The Thief paused as well. Then, in a lovely motion as graceful as a spider’s, he swept three arms back to the far side of his body, and slowly stretched out the remaining arm toward her, fingers extended.
Rowan hesitated, then reached out her own hand. Cold, hard fingers found hers, intertwined with them, talons gently brushing her palm.
The Thief tightened his grip. He tugged.
Rowan glanced about the cave once, turned back to him. She allowed him to lead her outside.
When she returned she went directly to the back alcove, where Janus was idly sifting drifts of moth wing. “Do you want to live?”
He looked up. He was rather long replying. “Yes.”
“Then come with me. Ask no questions. Do exactly as I say.”
A pause. “All right.”
Rowan did not display the talisman when they left the cave; no other demons were present in the ravine. Nor did she when they reached the street; there were no demons in the street, nor in any street visible around the edge of the ravine.
They followed the Thief of Words. Each street he led them to was deserted.
At one intersection, he turned right; Rowan knew that the quickest exit from the city would be accomplished by turning left. She paused at the intersection, looked left, saw no one.
The Thief noticed they were not following, stopped, returned, led right again, and paused, waiting. Rowan thought.
She had her sword in her right hand, the talisman in her left, pressed against her blouse, shielded, to prevent the Thief from being driven away. She gestured to Janus with her sword hand. Wait here. She went left.
The Thief startled, then jogged after her, kicking up small clouds of dust, brushing past Janus, who shied back against a den wall, eyes wild.
Rowan displayed the talisman; the Thief fell back. She maneuvered her body to block it from him, and continued on. When she looked back, the Thief of Words had fallen in behind her, clearly nervous, from the twitching of his fingers.
Just past the curve of the street, at the next intersection: four female demons moving in a slow, searching formation. Rowan backed off until the curve hid the searchers from view, then tucked the talisman against her blouse again, and jogged back to Janus.
The Thief caught up with them, paused, and with an almost emphatic deliberation, led right again. Rowan waved Janus forward, and they followed.
They took many turns; every intersection they passed, every street they entered, was empty. At one point, the Thief stopped in the middle of a street, for no reason that Rowan could discern, and waited, long; but when they crossed yet another deserted intersection it came to Rowan that the demon, with his exquisite sense of hearing, could certainly tell when nearby streets were occupied; could likely tell in what direction those demons were moving; and quite possibly, Rowan realized with wonder, could recognize specific individuals many streets away, purely by the sound of each voice.
The search had been relaxed but not discontinued entirely, as Rowan had seen. There might be places where many searchers were concentrated; but the Thief of Words knew how to lead them out.
They passed down street after street. The emptiness grew eerie. The great city began to feel to her like the pitiful, empty dens at Site Two.
And if Janus had not been stopped, he would have rendered it exactly the same.
She glanced back at him; his eyes were wide and wary, his clothes tattered and filthy, his hair and beard wild. He seemed half a wild animal, the only touch of civilization Rowan’s own neat and sturdy steerswoman’s pack. She needed her own hands free; but she had lightened the pack as much as possible by tossing out half the clothing and by carrying the water sack herself, refilled from the discarded canteen. She had made sure Janus had no weapons.
The Thief had paused again, and now abruptly doubled back to the last intersection and chose a different street. Rowan surmised a search party nearby.
They moved, for a while outward; then, suddenly nervous, the Thief doubled them back, crisscrossed eastward, and moved more calmly and easily.
Rowan could not share his confidence; by her reckoning, the new route would bring them quite close to the center of the city.
But the streets remained empty, even when by their length and curvature Rowan knew they had come closer to the center. The Thief moved more quickly but without fear; and Rowan began to notice something. It took her some time to identify.
Her earplugs had muffled the single combined voice of the city; now she heard it again. And it seemed to be no longer everywhere but focused, directional.
When by her calculations she and her companions were merely three streets away from the center, it became clear: many, many demons, perhaps most of the city’s population, were gathered together in the amphitheater.
The Thief crossed an intersection, waited for Rowan and Janus in the middle of the next street. Rowan glanced at him, caught Janus’s eye, and with a lift of her chin directed him to go ahead. Janus’s gaze narrowed, but he complied.
Only three streets away …
Rowan held out the talisman, turned to face the sound, and walked forward.
She did not need to go far. Past one intersection, then up ahead between the buildings, a narrow view of the center.
Demons all down the near slope and up the opposite slope and, Rowan surmised by sound, all around, nearly elbow to elbow, like a huge grove of strange trees, branches moving gently.
Down at the bottom, on the flattened area, on the stage: Tan. She was building something.
The structure spread around and to one side, and it was nearly as tall as Tan herself. As the steerswoman watched, the demon reached down to her speaking orifice and drew forth a case-object.
A word, Rowan thought, or a sentence, a statement? How much can a demon say in one utterance?
Tan held the utterance before her briefly, and the shifting of arms told of the watchers’ attention. Then she placed it atop one section of the structure; it adhered instantly. Tan took a half-rotating step to one side, clearing the view for the audience.
Rowan watched as more than two hundred demons simultaneously entered the identical stance: the specific demon pose of Regarding-an-utterance. And then, like a smooth wave, the stance of Contemplation.
And then, waiting; waiting, Rowan saw, with interest, eagerness. Individual demons shifted for a better view.
Tan continued her work.
Tan was making, Rowan realized, not many statements, but one great statement, one single thing that grew before the eyes of the crowd, each watcher waiting for the next idea to be added to the rest, linked to the rest, made part of
the whole.
Imagine it, Rowan thought: to say something and have it stand before the eyes of all, to be judged by all, as one unified expression.
So many demons— people, but no kin to her— held by words.
Is it beautiful to them? Rowan wondered. It must be, to hold them like this. Is it a song? She thought of Bel standing by a campfire in the Outskirts, tilting her face to the stars as she sang, the truth of her words riding on the beauty of her voice, riding up and out to the sky.
It must be beautiful. And it must be the truth.
And in that moment, the steerswoman felt she could not breathe for the weight of the yearning that lodged in the hollow of her throat. She wanted to stay. Even utterly uncomprehending, she wanted to remain until Tan had finished, to see completed the single great statement.
She could not stay.
She and Janus had needed a diversion to make their escape from the city. Tan was providing it.
She must leave; and suddenly she found that she could.
Only because she knew that humans would return. If not herself then some other steerswoman, someday.
Invisible, she nodded to them, to all the people, silent yet endlessly singing, and she said to them, with her lips if not her voice: We’ll be back. We’ll learn. We’ll speak to you, and we will come to know each other.
She began, carefully, to back away. She glanced over her shoulder—
Janus, directly behind her.
Not looking at the demons, looking at her; at her face; at whatever, at that moment, her expression revealed to him.
She saw him jerk, saw him gasp, draw a breath, heard him shout, “NO!” He snatched out; she moved the sword out of his reach.
But it was the talisman he went for; snatched it from her hand; flung it over the den roofs. Then he stood, shuddering, half bent, fists clenched, eyes closed, making wordless sounds—
And the demons came.
Rowan shouted, turned, struck out, contacted nothing, and fell, wondering why she fell.
Then she had no room left in her mind to wonder; all she knew was pain.
43
Rowan fought.
She twisted, flailed, struck out at the bodies around her, clutched and tore at the fingers gripping her. Her feet scrabbled on the ground, but whenever she put weight on her left leg, something sharp and bright flared in her brain, blinding every sense, and she ceased, briefly, to think at all.
She fought nonetheless. She heard a sound, loud: it was her own voice. She was shouting, cursing. The curses became more vicious, her voice wilder, and her words evolved until she said, in more a scream than a shout, “I am not a wild animal!”
Then stop acting like one.
She relaxed so abruptly that the demon who held her staggered and nearly fell. Narrow, taloned hands reached out from all around, caught, and steadied them both. The steerswoman shut her eyes, blindly searched for her balance, could find it only with one leg. She stood canted, half propped against the chill, smooth demon body behind her.
She opened her eyes to a forest of arms. The sun was too bright; the dusty air felt like lemons on her skin. She was dizzy and nauseated. She was shuddering with cold, despite the fact that she seemed, somehow, to be standing in fire.
She said, in a voice thick in the confines of her own skull, “Very well. You have me. Exactly what are you intending to do with me?”
But the demons’ attention was elsewhere.
Down below, at the focus of the amphitheater, Tan was demolishing her construction.
Tan’s fingers pried and tore. She hurled the fragments out into the crowd. Where the pieces fell, demons stepped quickly back. Along the slopes, the movements of arms told of shock, distress.
Tan cleared the stage completely of the remnants of her great statement. Then she spoke again: one small case-object.
That said, she stepped aside, sat, arms knotted above her maw.
As one, the audience entered into Regard and then Contemplate. At the edge of the amphitheater, Rowan stood among demons, held by demons, and tried, with strange difficulty, to focus.
Burned; she had been burned. She looked down, and discovered the damage. She must do something.
Her arms were held close to her body, but her hands were free. She clutched the water sack, tore the mouthpiece from it completely, pulled the opening wider, aimed as best she could manage, and emptied it.
There was darkness.
There was light. She was standing. The steerswoman lifted her head.
A demon stood before her. Rowan recognized Tan, and said weakly, “Oh …”
She looked down: on the dirt, a case-object. She looked up again. “I— I don’t understand.” She tried to study Tan’s pose, the movement of her arms, for clues as to thought, emotion.
Waiting. Tan was waiting.
Rowan shifted, found that some demon was holding her, from behind. It was the only reason she was able to stand.
Two female demons stood near Tan, also waiting.
Past Tan: more demons. Left, and right: demons.
Rowan was at the bottom of the amphitheater.
“I can’t answer,” Rowan said to Tan, helplessly. “I can’t speak as you do … I’d have to speak like a man.”
One of the two other females made a statement. All present Regarded, then Contemplated. Rowan gazed about, blinking in the glaring, painful sunlight.
The demon holding her, a female, had three companions, also female. All four stood tense and alert, their attention apparently only on Rowan. Close by: another group, in a similar configuration, with Janus at its center. He had lost the pack but seemed unhurt, but Rowan could not be certain— she could not see well, it was too bright, there was no air …
Rowan turned away, suddenly dizzy and unable, for a moment, to understand why she hurt so much. She closed her eyes, forced her breathing steady.
When she next looked, Tan had spoken to her again. The case-object resembled nothing Rowan could identify. The three demons with Tan still waited.
Rowan said, through clenched teeth, “This won’t work!”
Prove you are a person. But Rowan could not.
The ring; the steerswoman’s ring had impressed Tan, whatever she had thought its meaning. Tan’s men had taken it. Tan must get the ring or send one of her men—
To the secret place? Now, with the whole city watching?
No. That should not be done.
“Then say the word, the word that protects, the talisman. We’ll take it, we’ll leave you …”
But demons did not understand about the word, did not know what drove them from it.
But where had it come from? How had it ever been spoken?
The two females with Tan ceased to wait and now displayed anger. Tan tried once again, and this time, Rowan recognized the word.
A small word: a tiny human shape. Rowan herself.
What else did people do? Rowan scanned the crowd wildly. Other than speech, what showed these people as thinking beings?
Rowan’s guard still held her; but Rowan now found that when she moved, the guard permitted it. Awkward on one leg, leaning back against the demon, weak with pain and shock, the steerswoman raised her arms. As best as a human being could, she entered into the demon stance of Regard and then, Contemplate.
Startlement, like a wave moving up the slopes of the amphitheater. Then, arm-weaving, the sequential lift and fall, all around each demon’s body.
Wonder, Rowan suddenly understood, that’s Wonder.
Her guard released her, stepped back. Rowan fell; and for an unknown space of time, could not think.
When next she could see again, there were many more words on the ground than before; more people had spoken. But Tan— Tan strode among the statements, tossing them away with her hands, kicking them with her broad, taloned feet.
The two females nearby were watching, one quivering with rage; she entered attack stance.
A guard moved forward and quickly, smoothly, effi
ciently, killed her.
All present paused to eat. Those nearby politely passed portions to those further away. Tan dropped a choice segment down her maw, and stood chewing slowly and, it seemed to Rowan, thoughtfully.
When she was finished, Tan began to speak again. Rowan pushed herself up on her hands to watch.
One case-object; another, attaching to the first; a third, joining them at the top … Tan proceeded to construct a new statement. The crowd displayed Watching-with-interest.
But the slain female’s companion did not wait for Tan to finish. She uttered a small statement of her own, and stepped away from it, sat, her arms tucked above her maw.
Regard, from the audience. Contemplate. Tan paused.
Tan spoke again: a single, self-contained utterance.
Regard. Contemplate.
And, at the top of the slope, at the edge of the crowd: movement, a small pocket of agitation.
The dissenting female unknotted her arms, rose, approached Tan’s new statement. She uttered a case-object, attached it directly to Tan’s. Both stood considering the result.
The motion moved down the slope, though the crowd, toward the stage. Annoyance from those its passing disturbed.
Tan’s opponent took advantage of the pause in the proceedings. She stepped to the edge of the crowd, selected a male, and engaged in intercourse.
Tan continued to consider the combined statement. Then her arms lifted slightly as she, and simultaneously Rowan, recognized the demon pushing through the crowd toward the stage. The Thief of Words.
It came to Rowan that she must stand; if the Thief were bringing her ring, then whatever mysterious and important statement it would convey to the demons, Rowan must at the least be standing when they saw it.
She was half sprawled on the ground. She looked about: her guard was still beside her. As if it were the most natural act in the world, the steerswoman reached up, grasped one of the demon’s arms, and tried to pull herself to her feet.
She nearly fell again; the alteration in the pain in her leg made it seem new, and it nearly overpowered her.
The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) Page 46