The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition)

by Dusk Peterson

  I nodded. John tightened the bandage; Brendon gave an involuntary whimper, and John's gaze travelled up to his face, but this time John did not pause. When he had finished, he beckoned to me, and I followed him over to the sleeping alcove.

  He ducked around the curtain without pulling it back, and I did the same. In the dim light of the alcove, I could see a plain-framed bed and beside it a wooden chest. On the chest was a single carving, that of the blank god-mask. John opened it and began rummaging through the clothing inside.

  I could hear Ursula chatting with Brendon at the other end of the house. I said in a low voice, "You didn't tell me you'd married."

  John bent over, trying to peer into the dark chest. "I didn't know how to describe Ursula to you. I thought I would let the two of you come face to face so that she could introduce herself to you."

  "I like her very much," I said.

  John looked back at me then, smiling. "I'm glad. I'd hoped that you two would enjoy each other's company. Ursula is friendly with anyone who will allow her to be, but I can see that she has taken a liking to you."

  "I've hardly spoken a word."

  "Ursula doesn't need words in order to judge a man. —Here we are."

  I sat down beside him and watched as he brought out the iron dagger that had been at the bottom of the chest. He held it out to me, but I did not touch it. Instead I said, "I can scarcely believe that you still have it after all these years."

  "It was dedicated to the Unknowable God; I would not have lost it. Nor would I have misplaced the dagger with which we took our blood vow."

  I touched it then, very lightly, but withdrew my hand quickly. Looking up, I saw John's eyes on me. He said quietly, "I haven't forgotten what you told me before, but life in Koretia is dangerous now, especially for Ursula. I can go weaponless when I take her to the market because people here know me, but you're wearing an Emorian tunic. You need a blade on display to prevent men from starting fights with you and Ursula. I doubt that you'll need to draw it."

  "John . . ." I stopped to phrase my words correctly, and then borrowed them from another source. "John, when I nearly killed Lord Carle, Peter told me that I'm not the sort of man who can master my bloodthirst. I ought not even to wear a weapon."

  "Lord Peter is right: you cannot be master over your rage. You can allow someone else to be master of it, though. I am your blood brother, bound to you by an oath to the gods, and I am placing Ursula under your care. In turn, place your anger under my care and swear to me that, while you carry my dagger, you will not do anything that would bring harm to Ursula. If you swear this, then I know that you will not break your trust."

  I felt my heart pounding, and I was not entirely sure why. It had taken only a moment to turn gentle John, whom I had cared for when I was a boy as though I were the elder, into something much harder and firmer. It was like the moment when we had made our vows, or the more terrible moment later when I saw John with the dagger in his hand. Yet John's eyes looked upon me with their usual light touch, so I said, "I am Emorian now, and Emorians do not swear to the gods. But I will give you the oath I gave to the Chara, that I will obey the laws that you have bound me with, and I will use the dagger only as you would have me do."

  John smiled and said in an easy voice, "Tell Ursula that we'll need plenty of blackroot nuts. I may invite some friends over soon, and we always seem to be short of food when that happens."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was a beautiful Koretian morning. The meadow-green cloth covering the market stalls shone in stark contrast to the deep blue sky. Moisture shimmered on the ground ahead, brought forth by the warm air that enfolded us in its arms. Holding an apple up to inspect it for wormholes, Ursula said, "So you and John saw the demon being stoned?"

  I held Ursula's basket forward so that she could fill it with apples without my having to look at the fruit. I had stopped eating apples on the day that I learned Lord Carle owned one of the few orchards in Emor. "It was my idea to watch. I was rather bloodthirsty in those days. I had never seen John so angry – not at the demon, but at the men who stoned him. He said that of course such a man ought to be kept from doing wrong, but that there must be a way to exorcise the evil spirit from him, rather than destroy both the man and the demon at the same time. He talked about it for days."

  "It's hard to believe such things ever occurred," said Ursula, handing a few copper pieces to the fruit-seller before taking her basket back from me. "The gods be thanked that the priests no longer allow such happenings."

  I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. This was not the place to say that it was not the gods she should be thanking but the Chara. I could see out of the corner of my eye that the stall-keepers and customers in the market were watching suspiciously the half-breed woman and the man in Emorian clothes. It had taken no effort on my part to return to my usual cold expression; now and then I saw Ursula glance uncertainly at my face, but she made no comment on the fact that I had donned my old mask. Just as my rigid face had protected me in Emor from the back-stabbing palace dwellers – or from the more direct assaults of Lord Carle – so too, here in Koretia, the men and women who muttered remarks about Ursula and me appeared unwilling to come close enough to be within striking distance. I was beginning to believe that John's dagger would be a superfluous weapon during our market visit.

  As if she had guessed my unspoken thought, Ursula added, "Of course, the priests are to blame in the first place for ever allowing something like that to happen. When the gods gave us their law, they left it up to men to decide how it was used. Ceremonies like demon-stoning destroyed the whole purpose of the law. When you have seen the gods' law used properly, you can't doubt that it's a great gift."

  I looked curiously at John's wife, who was swinging around a pole in order to turn a corner between the stalls. "Have you seen the gods' law used? Aren't you too young to have seen it before it was outlawed?"

  Ursula turned quickly toward a nut-seller's stall she had just sighted. "Oh, well . . . you know, even rites that the Emorians outlawed still take place. Not demon-stonings, of course, but good rites that shouldn't have been outlawed, like trial by the gods' law. Anyone who has seen the god in judgment isn't willing to accept the Emorian view on such matters."

  She spoke as though she had witnessed the god himself pronounce judgment, but I knew what she meant. I had witnessed the gods' law in use only once, when John had been unjustly accused of stealing money from the priests and had asked me to be his witness at the trial. The "trial" – as an Emorian, I no longer regarded it as such – consisted of John and me and John's accuser meeting with his tutor, Lovell, and answering whatever questions the priest asked about John, whether they were connected with the theft or not. I could not initially understand the point of many of the questions, though I was interested in what they revealed about John. I heard not only of his virtues, which I knew, but also of his weaknesses, such as allowing the younger boys under his care to go unpunished for their misdeeds and covering up the wrongdoing of others in order to help them escape punishment. This latter fault was how he had come to be accused of taking part in the crime. I would gladly have adopted such vices, since they were more noble than many of my own virtues, but I was concerned by the strained look on John's face when it came time for Lovell to pronounce in the gods' name what sacrifice the god wished John to make for what he had done. John knew that the gods, being wiser to the consequences of evil than men, could require anything of him up to his death.

  In the end, the punishment had been quite small, but I remembered Lovell telling John, "Though the gods' ways may seem mysterious to us, the life of Koretia depends on us obeying the gods' commands."

  The memory echoed in my mind – surely I had heard those words at some more recent time – but a shout of voices roused my attention. I looked over at Ursula. We were standing now in the avenue, and she was waiting for me to speak, so I said, "I have seen the gods' law in use, and it is a wonderful tool in the right ha
nds, but I think that if I had a choice between facing trial under a mediocre Koretian priest or facing it under a mediocre Emorian judge, I would prefer the judge. The gods' law is too easy to manipulate."

  Ursula's gaze drifted away from me. Fearing that I was being too critical of her land, I changed the subject and said, "Does John know that you go to these unlawful trials, or do you—"

  "Look out!" Ursula cried suddenly, pointing behind me.

  I whirled, and had just time enough to thrust Ursula to the side of the road. There she fell into the arms of a black-bearded Koretian who, like everyone else, had darted out of the way of the approaching soldiers. Then the horses were upon me, squealing as they rose into the air above my head. The soldiers had stopped them just short of running over me.

  For a moment, my vision went dark with fear. I heard shouts and footsteps, and someone grabbed my arms, pinning them behind me. My vision returned, and I discovered that I was surrounded by a half dozen soldiers, all holding swords unsheathed. Beyond them and the horses was a carriage, with a round-faced, clean-shaven man staring angrily out the window at us.

  A lieutenant came up to him and said, "I'm sorry, Lord Alan. It's a Koretian blocking the way – probably one of the Jackal's thieves, trying to cause mischief."

  "Well, you've played right into his hands, haven't you?" the governor said sharply. "How many times must I tell you? If anyone gets in the way, ride over him. I'm not going to make myself a target for assassins just in order to keep from offending your sensitivities. Now, get this man out of the way, arrest him, and carry on."

  The soldier who was holding me dragged me aside as the other soldiers remounted. For a moment I could not speak because I was coughing from the dust flung up by the horses. Then, as the horses and carriage drew away and the lieutenant came forward, I said icily in my best Emorian, "Let me go. I'm no thief; I am free-servant to Peter, Lord through the Chara's honor, who has just arrived at the governor's palace."

  The lieutenant looked doubtfully at my face – dark but beardless – and then at my Emorian tunic before nodding to the soldier holding me. As I pulled my numb arms back into place, he said, "Watch your step in the future, Koretian – Emorian – whatever you are. The governor doesn't take kindly to having his path blocked."

  I made no reply as the soldiers mounted their horses and hurried to catch up with the others. My gaze was on the bystanders, who had not heard my words, but had witnessed the soldiers' quick release of me. No doubt if I had been some innocent Koretian, I would now be on my way to the governor's dungeon.

  I felt a familiar sickness in my mouth as I turned away. This sort of episode was all too familiar to me. For the Chara's sake, I had sometimes returned to his palace slave-quarters to try to help settle disputes that had arisen between the Chara and his slaves. There, for a brief while, I had acted as though I were any other slave-servant again – until evening, when the slaves were locked in for the night, and I returned to my comfortable chamber in the Chara's quarters. The looks I had received then were the same as I received now.

  I roused myself from my self-pity only when I realized that Ursula was nowhere to be seen. I could guess where she had gone; she had undoubtedly run back to her house to tell John what had happened. I began to make my way back toward the house.

  I learned the error of my assumption when I heard Ursula scream.

  Fortunately, she was not far away – I say "fortunately" because she was on the point of being dragged into a house near the market where she would no doubt have been gagged to keep her from screaming any further as the black-bearded Koretian took his pleasure. Not that anyone seemed ready to come to her rescue in any case. A few people glanced uneasily over at the half-Emorian woman struggling in the grasp of the Koretian man, but no one seemed ready to fight the man in her defense.

  I skidded to a halt just a few paces from the Koretian, and his look of frustration – Ursula was biting his hand to keep it away from her mouth – changed to one of high delight.

  "So, the apostate comes to claim the whore's bastard," he said. "You two are certainly well suited for each other."

  "Then give her to me," I said. My palms were tingling, but I kept my hand well away from my dagger. His was already unsheathed; he had used it to persuade Ursula to come this far.

  The Koretian smiled and thrust Ursula behind him into the open doorway. "Come take her."

  A curious crowd had gathered around us. They were watching me closely. Behind the Koretian, Ursula tried to squeeze her way out of the house, but he pushed her back carelessly with his arm. I heard her cry as she fell to the floor. Slowly, feeling my blood throb in a manner it had not done for a year's time, I pulled out the blade and took a step forward.

  A quiet voice next to me said, "Thank you, Andrew. You may give that back to me now."

  I was ill-trained in these matters; I made the mistake of looking over to the side. The Koretian was not ill-trained; he chose that moment to attack me. He never reached me, though. The next I knew, John, unarmed, had him on the ground and was wrestling with him for possession of his dagger.

  I would have joined the fight at once, but I found myself being held back by Ursula. She had fled from the house and had evidently decided that it was her duty to keep at least one of her protectors alive. Before I could push her aside, the fight was over: the Koretian, panting, had scrambled to his feet and was looking warily at his opponent. John had a cut on his cheek but was otherwise serene in expression as he held the Koretian back with the man's own dagger.

  "Andrew," he said softly, "please take Ursula back to the house."

  I looked uncertainly at John, raised in the priests' house, who to my knowledge had no more skill with a dagger than that which I had taught him as a child. But Ursula was tugging at my tunic, and I realized that John would have even less skill if he were distracted by worries about his wife's safety. So I took Ursula's hand, and we fled the marketplace together, running for the safety of the house.

  o—o—o

  The street window was already shuttered and bolted when we arrived. I waited until I had bolted the door as well before I flung John's dagger onto the table and leaned back against the door, trying to catch my breath. Ursula, who seemed well endowed with stamina and nerve, was already unpacking the basket she had quick-wittedly rescued on our way back. As she pulled out the nuts she had bought, I said, "Would you be safe if I left you here?"

  Ursula looked up and gave me a rueful smile. I saw that her hands were shaking and realized she was not as calm as she appeared. "You needn't worry about John," she said. "This has happened before, and he knows what to do."

  "God of Mercy," I said, lapsing back into a Koretian oath. "I had forgotten what Koretia is like. We have dangers in the Chara's palace, but they do not include rescuing women from dagger-wielding abductors."

  "It isn't because I'm a woman." Ursula bent over the nuts, which she was wrapping in a cloth. "It's because I'm half Emorian."

  I watched silently as she pulled up a trap door and placed the nuts into a cool cellar box. When she had raised her head again, she was smiling. She said, "You must be hungry. Would you like something to eat?"

  "To witness the truth, my appetite has fled me."

  Ursula laughed. "Well, John may be hungry. I'm going to go into the back to pull some vegetables."

  I went over to the rear window. A tall wall guarded the garden, and its gate was bolted. "If anyone tries to come into the garden, call for me. I will then repeat my performance of pretending to know blade-play."

  Ursula's rippling laughter remained ringing in my ears after she had been in the garden for several minutes. I watched her from the window as she urged a shrunken parsley plant with gestures to grow taller, and then paused to chat with a butterfly that had landed nearby.

  A loud knock on the door cut into my thoughts. I was quiet for a moment, waiting to see whether John's voice would follow, but nobody said anything, so I stepped lightly to the table and picked up the
dagger. I could remain silent, but the person at the door might be Brendon or one of John's other friends. "Who is it?" I asked in my deepest voice.

  "An Emorian soldier, come to pillage your house and rape your women."

  I fumbled in getting the bolt slid back and the latch lifted. By the time I opened the door, he was leaning against the doorpost with his arms folded, greeting me with a smile which had a touch of darkness to it that looked vaguely familiar. I said, "I'm sorry. I was just threatened by a Koretian who'd decided that traitors like me don't deserve to live."

  Peter's smile disappeared, and he stepped into the house at my gesture of invitation. "Yes, I saw that," he said. "I wasn't worried about you, though; you looked quite dangerous yourself. I could have sworn that you'd been taking secret lessons from Lord Carle in blade-play and intimidation."