by Jean Johnson
“Ban! What is it?” Éfan called out. Parren and Fali looked up briefly from their levitation efforts but had to keep working.
“A spy!” Unsure if that passage connected to the others, he wedged his hand into the narrow crack and flexed the muscles under one of the many tattoos painting his tanned hide. Between one breath and the next, he shrunk down, scrambled through, and re-enlarged himself as soon as he could. Ban flexed another tattoo to keep track of the twists and turns of the mazelike caves so he could find his way back, and gave chase.
The wand in Ban’s hand was brighter than the torch in the native’s, making his passage hard to see whenever the other man rounded a bend. The smell and sight of the torch’s soot lingering in the air; it and the thumping of native feet on the cavern stone kept the black-clad warrior on the fleeing man’s track. A spy who saw the Veilway was not allowed to speak of it to anyone else. That meant catch, or kill.
Jintaya will want him caught so that we can attempt to erase his memories, Ban thought, long legs catching up on the fleeing native slowly at best, thanks to the smaller man’s evident agility. Now how did he get in so close, on a path we could not see . . . ? Ah.
These caverns were indeed connected to the others, though the connecting point was so low, he had to drop onto his belly to slither through the low gap the other man used more readily in a rapid, scuttling crawl. Ban’s glowing wand remained steady, but the native’s crude pitch torch nearly guttered out from being scraped along the floor. It didn’t stop his flight, though. By the time Ban got through, the native was halfway across the sunlit cave. It was not a direct exit, but the next passage was broad and led out to a cave that was half-crevasse.
Finally free to run unimpeded by twists and turns in the granite face, Ban let his longer legs close the distance between him and his fleet-footed quarry. In the bright sunlight angling down from overhead, he could see the young man was about as heavily tanned as he was, with matted dark hair, some sort of primitive leather kilt wrapped around his hips, and very worn leather sandals strapped to his feet. One of those straps broke as he darted out of the crack they were following. He tripped, stumbled, then started yelling and waving his free arm, torch still held aloft. Sour sweat trailed in his wake, the scent of fear and an unwashed body, along with hints of pungent greenery and a drier kind of air than the caverns held.
Abruptly wary, Ban skidded to a stop at the edge of that opening. Beyond it lay the green-speckled, wind-and-water-carved ravine that the scrying spells of the others had scouted and checked. There should have been—and indeed were—a number of wild-growing bushes, trees, grasses, even a few flowers, and a half-dried, somewhat muddy pond suggesting that this area did flood from time to time, despite the palpable heat radiating off the rocky walls of the canyon.
There should not have been a good two hundred and more men, women, and children, ranging from babes in arms to graybeards. Most of whom looked thin, dusty, haggard from hard travel on little food and whom had apparently pulled sledges of primitive belongings, leather goods and grass-woven baskets. Though the wind shifted the air only a little bit, he could smell how desperately everyone needed a bath. There was water nearby for bathing, and he could see dampness on clothes and skin where some had slaked their thirst, but they must have reached this part of the canyons out there within less than an hour.
Just over one hour ago, when Jintaya herself had checked through the initial hair-thin opening of the Veil, the cave system and its immediate surroundings had been native free. Natives who now grabbed for their spears, their slings and primitive bows, and who pushed their children back out of harm’s way as they faced the black-clad stranger chasing one of their own out of the caves.
“Ban, what is happening?” he heard Jintaya demand, even as the man he had chased, a middle-aged fellow with a good amount of stamina, started pointing his way and babbling in the local tongue.
“Jintaya . . . we have a problem,” he murmured, carefully lowering his sword so that it was not quite so threatening. The subtle blue tattoo marked around his eye, his ear, and all the way down to his throat twitched and itched a little, struggling to comprehend and translate their language.
“Tell me you did not kill the spy, Ban,” she stated reprovingly.
“No, but I should have,” he replied quietly, counting numbers, gauging weapon skills, and debating just how much of a fight he might have on his hands. The pale blue tattoo marking him from right eye to ear to throat and linked permanently to his personal, alien magics, finished making sense of their language. Syllables, vowels, and consonants became sounds imbued with meaning. Words such as magic and great power and anima beings, whatever anima was, made him flinch. “He’s now telling about . . . two hundred twenty people what he has seen. Male and female, young and old. A tribe of some sort. They look like they have traveled far to get here and have only just arrived.”
“Shae? Tash keleth!” she swore. He blinked a little, not used to hearing the great lady curse like that, but otherwise kept himself calm and ready . . . until he heard several more running up behind him. Twisting sideways so he could face both groups, he held out his curved blade in warning, the pale gold metal reflecting the light like a slice of the sun.
Five more men and two women, for a total of seven humans, appeared behind him. Carrying torches and wrapped in rough leather garments held on by crudely woven cords, they stumbled to a stop in the ravine behind him. They eyed his weapon and unfamiliar, neatly tailored garments with wide, wary eyes. The crevasse was narrow enough; Ban could easily keep them blocked off from the rest of their tribe. He could hold off both groups, too, so long as he stayed in the narrow opening, unless the larger mass of natives decided to start slinging spears and shooting arrows at him all at once. That might make this trickier, if Jintaya doesn’t want me to kill.
“I need guidance, my lady,” he murmured, verbally prodding the woman on the other end of the crystal earrings linking the expedition members together. “Do I kill them, or not?”
She sighed heavily. “The damage is done. Do not harm them. Return to the pantean.”
Seven versus one, fully blocking his path, with an order not to harm any of them? Sighing roughly, he shifted his weight, rolled an ankle to activate another tattoo, and leaped at the wall on his right. Foot clinging for a brief, magic-assisted moment, Ban whirled and leaped higher, bounding back and forth across the gap of the narrow chasm. Each step angled him back, up, and over the heads of the gaping men and women, until he was free to drop to the ground and sprint back the way he had come without fear of being in range of an attack.
Or rather, he ran back almost the same way. Taking the main passages their spells had scouted, he reached the mouth of the innermost cave in time to find all seven of the others waiting for his return, and the Veil Arch sealed against normal eyesight. He could still feel the Veil, the traces of warm, sunlight-like Fae energies radiating from where it had stood, but the portal now hid behind an illusion of the cavern wall having been moved forward by a few feet.
Only Fae powers could shift that wall back. Of the eight members of the pantean, Ban had not the right kind of magic to move it and access the way back. Then again, of the eight of them, he had no reason to go back. As soon as he crossed into the cavern, Éfan passed his hand over the opening. More rock sprang up—an illusion of rock, sealing them inside for their protection. A glance to the left showed the crack in the wall had a similar faux-stone patch.
The other two men, Adan and Kaife, had finished passing through supplies and belongings and had joined their wives, Fali and Parren. They were busy donning the flexible, overlapping scales of faeshiin armor in the same shade of gold as Ban’s blade. If this moment came to a fight, Ban would not be the only one armed and ready. The third woman in their group, however, did not look ruffled by the thought of combat. Clad in a flowing golden gown that shimmered in the light of the crystal torches set around the chamb
er for illumination, she studied the water inside a silver bowl balanced in her hands.
“Ban,” Jintaya greeted, glancing briefly at him. She was older than Fali and Parren, older even than Rua by many decades, though she only looked to be in her late twenties, maybe a handful of years older than Ban looked at most. Her hair, however, was the telling factor; where Fali’s fell to her shoulders, and Rua’s and Parren’s locks fell to midback, hers reached all the way to her knees. Pale and golden, she looked like a statue made of sunlight and honey to him. “Have you learned their language yet? It is eluding my scryings, and the myjiin we took for our last trip does not seem sufficiently strong enough to translate in this realm.”
“Yes. I can understand them.” He moved closer when she beckoned him to her side, and politely peered into the mirror-polished bowl. The sounds were faint, but the images clear; the seven with the torches, the eighth who had spied upon them, and a clutch of a good ten more bearing weapons now tracked their way through the caves in search of the strangers in their midst.
“Translate for me.”
“They are . . . looking for us . . . The younger ones are boasting how they’ll take whatever we have. The eldest has just shushed them and said that I did not attack.” He listened a moment more and added, “One of the women says she is tired of traveling and is willing to fight for a place to stay. The other, the one with the longer spear, complains she wants a safe haven, not another battle with people who are potentially stronger—she mentions my clothes and gear as being beyond anything they know how to make.”
Éfan, their specialist in cross-dimensional magics, joined them. He was shorter than Ban despite being the tallest of the others, but then the black-haired human towered over all of the golden-haired Fae in the cave by a good hand span. Éfan stood taller than most of the natives, too, if not all of them.
“It sounds as though they are refugees,” Éfan stated. He eyed Jintaya and lifted the crystal egg still in his hand. “The energies of this world are different from our universe in certain key ways. Situational magics are responding sluggishly. I would not be able to catch all of them in a memory-altering spell at once, and I would be hard-pressed to alter their memories one at a time fast enough to keep them from talking to each other, cross-contaminating my efforts.”
Jintaya bowed her head. She pressed the sides of her index and middle finger against the midpoint of her furrowed brow, a gesture Ban had seen her use before when she was annoyed and needed to think. Respectfully, he waited in silence. If the decision were his, he would have considered the most expedient of solutions: killing the entire tribe to keep their presence quiet. He might not have actually done so, but Ban did not care about any others, one way or another. He had not cared about anyone for a very long time, until Jintaya had rescued and stood up for him.
She was not a human like him, nor like the natives of this world seemed to be, but she had helped restore some of his long-lost humanity. He waited, patient, for her to decide what should be done about them.
Sighing, she lowered her fingers with a dismissive little flick, as if shaking off whatever negativity had arisen for a few moments in her mind. “We cannot alter their memories quickly at this time, and there are too many who will remember you. We cannot just repack everything, find another spot, and begin anew. Anything they remember of this moment will be recanted in legends, distorting the facts.
“We are therefore obligated to make peaceful contact ahead of schedule. If they are refugees,” she said, slanting her golden eyes at the master mage of their group, “then they may not know that we ourselves have only just arrived. This gives us a chance to claim ownership of this region . . . which means we shall behave as gracious hosts. Diplomacy,” she added to Ban, “is always more effective than combat when wielded before the first blow, not after. Thank you for not harming anyone.”
Ban dipped his head in acknowledgment.
“They may have what appear to be primitive weapons and virtually no armor, but they are many and we are few,” Jintaya told the others. “We shall therefore make a show of civilized strength. Éfan, clear the way to the next cavern. Push them back; then check it for any possible spying point, and seal it. I realize this will take you time, but it must be done so that they understand these caves are ours, not theirs. They may have any others, if there are others, should they need such for shelter.”
After bowing, Éfan moved back to the sealed-over opening. Once there, he concentrated on the crystalline egg in his hand. Ban still had little idea how the man’s magic worked, despite having lived among the Fair Traders for a handful of years now. He turned his attention back to their leader, and his mind back to practical matters.
“If they have been fighting other tribes and have been forced out of their home territory,” Ban offered, “then they will want stone walls to guard their flanks. They may not give up these caverns easily. There is enough room to house them all, and a little bit for ourselves.”
“We could offer them something more important,” Parren stated. “They will want water for drinking.” She lifted her chin at Jintaya’s scrying bowl. “I saw that pond. It will not be enough to slake their thirst for long. If we have clean water to offer, it will be seen as hospitable.”
The three senior members of the expedition glanced at her, though Éfan returned his attention to his task after a moment. Despite not even being Fae, Ban outranked her simply by pure longevity. Not even Jintaya had lived as long as he had, though normally a Fae outlived a human by at least twenty times the normal span.
“These ravines and their caves are the only patch of greenery for days of travel in any direction,” Adan told Parren. “If we have an abundance of water, they may think to steal it from us. We should instead give them a display of our strength. Magic and sunsteel will back them off,” he added confidently, his hand going to the faeshiin gold hilt of the sword he had slung at his hip.
“If we have very little to give, they may seek to kill us, just to ration what there is,” she countered.
Fali held up her hand between the two. “It does not hurt to be courteous. As the Great Guardian says, ‘If you offer kindness, you are more likely to receive kindness. If you offer discourtesy, you are more likely to receive discourtesy. We shall therefore offer courtesy first and only react in unkind ways when we are treated unkindly. These are the ways of the Fae Rii,’” she recited, attempting to sound as wise and mature as their leader Jintaya. “I should not need to remind you of this.”
“I should not need to remind you that we botched our usual careful arrival,” Adan retorted.
“Peace, cousin,” Kaife stated, clasping Adan’s shoulders. As Fali was the cousin of Parren, Kaife was cousin to Adan. He smiled and nodded at his mate. “Parren’s offer would be a strong display of power if we conjured that water in front of them.”
“We do not know how these primitives view their local magic yet,” Jintaya reminded the young man, her gaze still on the bowl though her pointed ears were on their conversation. “Nor how well they themselves can wield it. That was why we were to observe from a distance before making any approaches. The last thing we need is to be viewed as some sort of demons or gods. Now, what else should we consider, regarding magic and water?”
Parren sighed. “If they already know how to draw water out of the aether of this world, then they may be able to do so far more efficiently than us.”
“Precisely. Parren, Adan, Fali, Kaife, begin your scrying exercises and study these natives while Éfan makes more room in these caves for us,” Jintaya instructed. “I shall prepare the myjiin to boost our ability to learn the local language.”
“And what will Tall, Dark, and Uncaring be doing?” Adan asked. His cousin smacked the back of his head. Adan flinched and shot Kaife a dark look but didn’t protest the swat. Ban ignored his quip, choosing to drink from one of the water jugs brought across among their other supplies. Chasing s
omeone was thirsty work.
“They have reached the midrange caverns,” Éfan stated, his attention on his crystal. “Since he can speak their language, if he were to gently escort them elsewhere, I could expand our territory more quickly without frightening them by abruptly relocating all these walls.”
“Ban?” Jintaya asked, turning to him.
Taking a last swallow, he set the jug down and bowed to her. “As you wish.”
“Gently,” she reminded him.
He lifted a hand in acknowledgment as he turned toward the sealed cave exit. Éfan waved it open with a flick of his fingers, then sealed it shut behind the dark-haired man. Ban passed through two more such portals before spotting the flickering, golden orange dance of approaching torchlight. Striking his crystal rod against one of the irregular walls, he extinguished it. Jintaya preferred the sweetness of diplomacy, but he knew that sometimes one had to prime the pump, so to speak, with a taste of potential unpleasantness.
When Jintaya had rescued him during a previous trade mission, she had persisted with her calm pleasantness in the face of his raging suspicion, distrust, and hostility. Three times, he had nearly killed her . . . and three times she had forgiven and embraced him. It was the Great Guardian himself who had explained it to Ban after assessing the man Jintaya had insisted on bringing back to Faelan with her expedition, when that world they had traveled to had proven too uncivilized for the Fair Traders to continue visiting.