Wanderer: The Moondark Saga, Books 4-6 (The Moondark Saga Boxed Sets Book 2)

by Don McQuinn

  “Don’t play innocent.” He spat close to her feet. “Power. What women such as you always lust after. You almost made me believe your lies. What dregs you all are. The black one nearly destroyed Canis Minor. You plot at the overthrow of your own Church.”

  Helpless outrage sent Sylah’s mind spiraling into a thundering void. Consciousness streamed out of her, a winding veil that slipped between her reaching fingers. Disoriented, she nevertheless felt answering words rise from within her. “You offend. You cannot lie to me. You know I am the Flower. Remember the Apocalypse Testament: ‘The lie of an enemy may take a life. The lie in one’s mouth can condemn one’s soul.’ You are the heir to a sacred trust. You dare not prostitute it. Consider the unspeakable eternity of your situation.”

  Clouded vision gradually cleared. She found Orion still before her, but stooped, ashen, a man aged to the end of his years. Fear crabbed his hands, twitched at his muscles.

  Canis Minor strutted to Orion’s side. “Threats. Woman’s ways. The Tate one has hers, you have yours. We’ll cure you. All of you.” He kicked Nalatan’s feet, earning a breathy groan from the monk.

  Sylah dismissed Canis Minor’s mindless tormenting. Like thirst and pain, she discovered she was able to retreat from it into a serene distance. Her self-possession inflamed Canis Minor. He slapped her.

  Sprawled on her back, Sylah heard his words to Orion as from a distance. “And you wanted to execute them. That sort of arrogance alone should be called treason, coming from a woman. Now can you understand why the chief and council agreed with me that Nalatan’s a traitor, and they’re all equally guilty?”

  Regaining her sitting position, Sylah told Orion, “You say you pass on Starwatch legend to Canis Minor. It seems he’d rather defile them.”

  Canis Minor poised to strike again. Orion said, “Stop. The rules are clear. No abuse.”

  Grudgingly, Canis Minor let himself be led away from the prisoners. Tate stirred, mumbled something indistinguishable. Canis Minor’s smile at her was barbed. He spun on his heel and left.

  Sylah said, “Well, Orion? What’s to be done with us?”

  Fetching a waterskin, Orion concentrated intently on filling a dried gourd cup. He handed it to her. Throughout, he avoided her eyes. She bent to sip. Only then would he answer. “We’ve sent for the Harvester. To witness.”

  Sylah poured out the scorn in her heart. “Of course. You grovel. For you, Church is only fear, so you’ll use us for entertainment that terrorizes your people. You’ll tell each other how powerful the men of Starwatch are. To prove it, you’ll gather the tribe to watch us suffer. Nalatan, because he’s truly brave, and you’re not. And us. Three women. We challenged you. We defied men. That’s our treason.” She stopped, exhausted, but yet again, unbidden and uncalled words compelled her to speak them. Her voice took on a heavy, forbidding timbre. “Poor, poor man. To wait so long, only to be the one to poison the field again, before the seeding. False Orion knows the truth. He will know sorrow and punishment.”

  Orion sagged. His voice shook. “It’s not true. You’re trying to witch me.” He backed away. Distance improved his nerve. “Witch. Leave off. Church—the Harvester—protects me.” He almost ran away.

  Sylah examined their location. A gray slope, dangerously steep, rose behind them. To the front was a large semicircular area cleared of plants or large stones. Its limits were defined by a waist-high rock wall. Beyond, brush softened a valley floor that extended another fifty yards before becoming the opposite slope. That one was gradual, and Sylah detected faint smoke rising beyond it; the village had to be over there.

  Archers blocked any possible escape routes.

  The waterskin lay nearby. Sylah fetched it. She dabbed Tate’s lips, cleaned Nalatan’s wound. Lanta appeared at her elbow. Wordlessly, Sylah extended the skin. Lanta took a hearty drink, swayed, then took the skin to Tate, who was stirring.

  Tate’s recovery was hard. Her friends helped her up, supported her in an awkward shuffle to the edge of the natural amphitheater. Tate was sick for some time. At last, the three sat down together.

  Lanta said, “They drugged us very heavily, to bring us here without waking. What will they do? Have you tested these straps? They knotted the leather wet. It’s dried like iron.”

  Sylah summarized her conversation with Orion, omitting reference to Dodoy. Tate extremely agitated, screamed at the archers for news of the boy. They ignored her. Sylah and Lanta soothed her, assuring her Starwatch wouldn’t harm him. Lanta watched Sylah shrewdly, careful to repeat only things Sylah said.

  Wearying, Tate lamented. “It’s all my fault.” She looked to the unconscious Nalatan. “I did everything wrong.” There was a gloss of soft wonder on her words, the bewildered regret of a cheated child. “It should have been so easy. I love him. I think he loves me. That’s not necessary, though, you know? I want to hold him in my arms, make him know I love him. Why didn’t I tell him? Do something about it? I’d at least have had something. Now I’ve caused all this.” She searched the faces of her friends for the wisdom she lacked.

  Sylah scuffled closer, took Tate’s clenched hands in hers. A guard shouted from the ridgeline. “No touching! Leave the bonds alone. I’ll shoot.”

  Lanta lurched to her feet. Amazingly loud defiance bellowed out of her. “Shoot! Shoot and be damned! You don’t have the guts!”

  The warrior disappeared.

  Tate goggled. Laughed. “Guts? Be damned? Lanta. Where’d you learn such language?”

  “You know very well where. Never mind. Are you feeling better now?”

  Tate shook her head. “Stronger, anyhow. Thanks.”

  “Then tell him what you told us.” Sylah tilted her head toward Nalatan. “Wake him. Tell him.”

  Consternation danced across Tate’s features, set her eyes darting, looking for escape. Suddenly, she said, “Tanno. Have you seen her?”

  Lanta was firm. “No. Now go to Nalatan. While you have the chance.”

  The last words brought Tate’s head up. Very thoughtfully, she said, “It’s down to that, isn’t it? ‘…the chance.’”

  Sylah said, “Whatever they do, we help each other. Sisters. Agreed?”

  Lanta and Tate bent forward to kiss her cheeks. Tate rose, graceful in spite of everything, and went to the unconscious warrior monk with the water. Washing her hands first, she poured a few drops on her fingers, then moistened his lips. Tentatively, his surprisingly red tongue worked to touch the water, then retreated. She repeated the wetting, and he licked again, frowning concentration.

  It was late afternoon before his eyes fluttered open. At the sight of her, he smiled. A hand instinctively sought to examine the wound at the back of his head, only to be brought up short by the bindings. He froze.

  In the next instant, Tate was flat on her back. Nalatan stood over her, knees bent, wide-legged, poised to defend or attack. He pivoted in a series of turns that moved him in unpredictable arcs.

  Tate scrambled to her feet. He whirled to face her. His face was a staring, inhuman mask. Tate’s mind flashed to the past. The tiger’s eyes. Glowing, lit by a compressed energy intent on the task of killing.

  Tone would be as important as words. “It’s me, Nalatan. Donnacee. Talk to me. Please. Let me talk to you.”

  His weight rolled from one foot to the other. Hands like blind animals clawed at his bonds. Tate cajoled, begged. Behind her, she felt the presence of the other women, prayed they’d keep away. Even more dangerous, the archers were watching. So far, they’d remained silent. If one of them startled Nalatan… She shut out the idea.

  The muscles around Nalatan’s eyes softened. His hands lowered. Tate spoke more quickly, urgently. Nalatan’s stance closed. He stood taller. He looked down at the bindings in puzzled wonderment. His gaze went to Tate. Recognition smoothed his features. He raised his hands.

  Tate said, “They drugged us. Someone clubbed you. Did you eat their food?”

  “Water. It tasted strange.” He drove the bound hands
down against his stomach. “Fool!”

  Running, tripping, Tate put her hands to his face, and cried out in dismay. The eyes that menaced only moments before rolled up in his head. He would have fallen if she hadn’t caught him. He recovered quickly, but Tate insisted he lie down. He agreed with a tired smile. “I’m sorry if I frightened you. We’re trained to respond. When the energy stops, it leaves you empty.”

  She shushed him, sat next to him and cradled his head on her thighs. He looked up at her. Stroking the hair back from his temples, she said, “I’m here now. The way I should be.”

  He said, “I behaved badly. About Canis Minor, I mean. What he said. And then you seemed interested in him.” His expression pleaded.

  “Lots of men interest me. Always will.” She watched disappointment touch his features before adding, “There’s only one I want to interest. Ever. I should have said so a long time ago. That night on the island.”

  Nalatan sat up, looked away. “That was when I decided to bring you to my people, if I ever had the opportunity. With the Harvester herding us away from Church Home, I took it as a sign. Since we got here, I’ve been asking about the stories of black-skinned people in our tribe.”

  “You could have told me.” Tate tried not to scold.

  “I wanted to tell you everything at once. You’re so concerned about Dodoy’s past, your past. I wanted you to see that you shouldn’t look at the present and the future—our present, our future—only in terms of the past. Sometimes things change only because they must, but even then, we can hold onto the best of what our forebears created. I don’t know what you left behind. I didn’t know if you wanted to be with me. I only knew that nothing new can be built without some change to what is old. You’re not like the women of my people, and I didn’t want to claim you. I wanted you to come to me because it was what you wanted.”

  Tate’s mind swam with images, shameful memories of the abandoned, unattached feeling that made Canis Minor seem necessary. She remembered Sylah’s commenting something about how Donnacee Tate wanted to dominate her surroundings. Even now, in this moment of hopeless tenderness, that penetrating analysis rankled.

  Because it had been true. That Tate couldn’t break free of a dead world’s arbitrary social vision. That Tate wanted to marry, raise children, but only according to the dictates of that culture’s perceptions. Nalatan couldn’t imagine the base of the problem that kept them apart, but he had the wit to know that love would transcend it. He was willing to wait for her to come to him. In her own way.

  Her way.

  Nalatan reached to touch her. The strap checked him. She bent to his caress. With her chin cupped in his vee’d hands, he said, “I love you.”

  She kissed him. Lingering. Tender. It spoke of forever. And good-bye.

  * * *

  Lanta watched ashamed of prying, too touched to resist. Her head roared with recollection of the Seeing… the Flower that nourishes all feeds on that which nurtures and benefits the Flower.

  Surreptitiously, Lanta raised a hand to her breast. Through her robe, she clutched at the True Stone. She asked herself if the Door was worth so much sacrifice.

  If the Door was a source of some secret power, they’d never know. Not now.

  The True Stone had a known power.

  The Harvester would pay any price for it.

  Lives, for instance.

  The Seeing also said, “What Flower remains as before?”

  What if the promised change the Flower must go through was bad?

  Should they all die in order to nurture one whose future was so ambivalent?

  Chapter 24

  Shuddering across the darkness in resonant waves, haunting warhorn blasts announced the Harvester’s party. There were three horns, each with a different note. Harmonizing, they filled the valley with an infinity of reverberations.

  Sylah heard them as the forlorn lowing of beasts separated from their young.

  The image reminded her she’d heard no encouragement from her inner voice since Starwatch drugged her.

  Had it deserted its defeated listener?

  Ignoring the aching muscles generated by what was now a full day and a half of being bound, Sylah straightened and threw back her shoulders. She’d done all she could. She’d fought hard. If the voice that brought her so close to the Door wanted her to succeed, it should have helped at the end.

  Sylah ducked her head guiltily, peered about her into the darkness. Now she was scolding the One in All. Or the Iris Abbess, who was only a few steps removed.

  She thought about that for a bit, and decided she had a right to scold. The Door was near. Practically at hand.

  She shifted irritably. The braided leather line holding her to the post set in the ground brought her up short. For the moment, she’d forgotten that new development, just put in place that afternoon. She guessed she should be thankful Starwatch hadn’t leashed them the previous day.

  Nalatan explained the significance of the arrangement. At night, with the prisoners backed up against the steep slope behind them, the tribe would assemble in the cleared area to participate in the punishment.

  Sylah questioned the word participate. Nalatan explained.

  Starwatch stoned traitors.

  The tears scalding her eyes weren’t so much fear or disappointment as frustration. So much work. Faith. Not hers alone. Lanta. Tate. Nalatan. As far back as Gan, and that conniving, devious, wonderful Peddler, Bilsten. Helstar.

  Above all, Clas. Clas, who believed in her enough to let her go. Who else could boast such a one?

  All finished. Everything wasted.

  Another tone soared through the mournful notes of the warhorns. Trums, the notes like brass arrows.

  On the ridge between the amphitheater and the village, a torch crawled up into sight from the reverse slope. Another followed. Soon a cluster gathered on the crest. They paused, then plunged downhill in a confused welter. On the low ground, the torches gathered in a roughly round mass, waiting at the edge of the defined clear area.

  Sylah wondered why they didn’t simply move forward and settle in for the entertainment.

  In answer to her unspoken question, a lone rider galloped onto the scene from her left. He, too, carried a torch, raised high in his left hand. Sliding to a halt, the rider dismounted smoothly. When he planted the pointed end of the torch holder in the ground, Sylah saw he was dressed in a tight vest, laced at front and sides. That, and his loose trousers, appeared to be gray. His headgear was a high-crowned affair with a crease down the middle and a wide brim. Small shining things dangled from the edge of the brim in a half circle running around the back from ear to ear. They glimmered, hanging by some sort of cord that also caught the torchlight. An unstrung bow and quiver of arrows were slung on his back, and a short sword at his belt was strapped to his right thigh. When he shifted position, moving past the front of the grounded torch, Sylah saw three vertical black lines drawn on the back of the vest.

  Nalatan said, “A warrior monk. Opal brotherhood. See them on his hat? The largest brotherhood, over a hundred men. I know many of them.”

  Tate perked up. “Will they help us?”

  “I wish they could. So do they, I imagine. They’ll be neutral, so long as no one threatens the Harvester.” Nalatan turned his attention to Sylah. “It’s their oath, Sylah. It’s not personal.”

  She found a smile. “I know.”

  Tate said, “They sound as smart as my dog. I’m worried about her. They wouldn’t hurt her, would they?”

  Her companions all shook their heads, made assuring sounds. It was Nalatan who said, “Starwatch puts great emphasis on freedom. I expect them to release her.”

  Tate clutched at the hope. “She’d like that. Even here in the Dry. To roam. You know how she loves to run. If I thought someone would be good to her, I’d give them the Dog word, give her to them.”

  Sylah shook her head. “It wouldn’t do. She’s yours now. She’d never accept anyone else.”

 
“She’ll die, then. Like us. Now that the Harvester’s here, they’re going to pull the plug.”

  Sylah said, “Plug?”

  But Nalatan understood the context. “Don’t think about it.”

  Bitterly, Tate said, “You spent your whole life waiting to die for your cause. I can’t get enthusiastic about it, all right?”

  They had no more time for argument. At the end of the valley, a string of torches appeared. Single file, at first, the column split, forming two lines. As the group came closer, the warriors of Starwatch set up their howling. Lanta winced, turned her face from the advancing unit. Sylah reached to take her hand. The smaller woman’s grip was frigid the pressure the strength of desperation.

  More torches appeared on the other flank. Starwatch’s leaders trailed in. The two groups met directly in front of Sylah and her friends. The Harvester dismounted with a swirl of her voluminous robes. The chief of Starwatch greeted her formally, flourishing three-signs. He gestured at a man carrying a large bundle. Opened, it revealed Tate’s weapons.

  Orion watched without moving, stiff and distant until the Harvester turned to him. Sylah strained to hear, but they were too far.

  A moment later, Orion lifted a torch and waved it over his head. More howling ululated through the valley. The crowd surged forward. Sylah recoiled. There were only men and boys. They’d filled baskets or nets with rocks. The dignitaries moved to the flanks, out of the line of fire.

  The warhorns came forward. Slender, copper cones longer than a tall man from mouthpiece to flared bell, their burnished forms glowed warmly. Two men carried each horn. They halted on the edges of the stage area. They faced away from the prisoners. One of the team mounted the bell on his shoulder. The other put his mouth to the instrument. The three horns sounded.

  Orion came to stand behind the left pair. When the echoes stilled, he said, “We are here to execute traitors to Starwatch, to Church. The Harvester is here to witness that Starwatch justice includes loyalty to Church. The prisoners shall be stoned. Men will pass among you to assure no one uses stones too large.”