6
Kieran had been dreading the morning, but Anghara woke to lucidity—not that she could fail to wake to full knowledge of the events of the previous night, with a black dagger dark with dried blood clutched in one hand and a tight bandage on her other arm. Having inspected these, in silence, she raised her eyes to meet Kieran’s rather wary blue gaze and, somewhat unexpectedly, laughed.
“It’s all right, I’m not dangerous,” Anghara said with a wry smile still playing around her mouth. She’d run an experimental hand over the ground at her heels, but it was too hard to scour her dagger clean desert-fashion, by simply plunging it into the sand. “Can I have something to clean this with?”
Kieran passed a rag. “I don’t really want to ask this,” he said carefully, “but what were you trying to do last night?”
She answered without looking at him, bent industriously over her blade. “Trying to prove something,” she said, very quietly. He couldn’t see her grimace but he could hear it in her voice as she said, “Although why I picked last night to try, I can’t tell you. All I did was prove…that it still makes me ill…”
“What does?” He was on his feet. “Are you all right?”
She looked up at that, with another smile. “No, Kieran.” There was pain in her eyes; her voice, infinitely gentle, was raw with it. “I wonder,” she said, her eyes wide, focused somewhere beyond the horizon, “if he knew how deeply he wounded me…”
He. Sif. The specter who had ridden into Shaymir with them. Kieran’s eyes darkened. “But you did…”
She focused her gaze back on him, after a beat of silence. “Did what?”
But Kieran had already thought better of it. Now was probably not the time to tell her about what he had felt last night. “No, it’s not important. Do you feel like some breakfast?”
“I couldn’t eat a thing,” she said wanly.
“We’ve a long day ahead,” he said, sounding like a mother scolding a recalcitrant child. “You need to keep your strength up.”
“Very well,” she said, after a small hesitation. “I’ll try.”
She didn’t eat much, but Kieran didn’t press the point. Anghara always seemed at her weakest in the morning, oddly enough—just after she had supposedly spent a good few hours resting during the night; it was as though she drew whatever strength was hers to muster from the effort of the day. This morning, more than ever, she seemed edgy and restless and frail—as though she smelled something in the wind.
“I feel…as though we’re not alone,” she said at length, pausing to look around as she was about to mount her horse.
Kieran felt an icy shiver down his spine. “What do you mean?” Could she sense them after all, those whom she had called here?
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s as though…Ah, but I’m dreaming. Oh, my head! I’m dizzy with headache. Kieran, what happened last night?”
“I only…woke when I heard you cry out,” he said carefully, avoiding her eye.
She’d mounted by now, and seemed absorbed by the dried blood on her sleeve. But she roused after a moment and gave him a brave smile. “All right, I’m ready. Where to from here?”
“I think it’s safe to start edging a little to the north now,” said Kieran. “We should be past the Dance…”
“The Dance?” Her horse shifted nervously under sudden conflicting commands from heel and bit. “The Shaymir Dance…Perhaps that was what triggered…Is it close by? Can we…”
She had been luminous, transformed; a sudden light had flashed in the wide gray eyes. But then she reached for Sight—out of instinct, from the plinth of power—and Kieran could see the instant of breaking. She crumpled in pain, the light fading; there had been something in her face at that moment that had been almost old.
A weird gust of wind chose that moment to explode out of nowhere, blowing dust and sand into a small twister at the horses’feet; it faded almost as soon as it came, leaving the debris it had picked up to fall where it would. In its wake the air grew solid, still, as though Kieran was breathing honey. But as he drew his first shallow, ragged breath of it, even that was gone, leaving nothing but a sense of a vast and brooding power. Still struggling to get his breath back, Kieran became aware that Anghara was speaking.
“…sorry. I swear, I felt it less keenly when I was shut up in Sif’s dungeons—now that my body is free it’s harder for the soul to accept it’s still in chains…Are you all right, Kieran? You look as though you’ve seen…a ghost…”
That too he saw breaking on her face—the realization of who his ghosts were. There was a blank look in her eyes which frightened him, a white shadow around her mouth. “They did come,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with emotion. “I called them, and they did come…and I can’t even sense their presence…”
This time there was no conflict; the horse reacted to a sharp stab of its rider’s heels and set its ears back, breaking into an explosive gallop. But not before Kieran, in the instant she turned away, saw the flash of tears in Anghara’s eyes.
Kieran swore softly. He was hampered by the packhorse tied to the back of his own saddle, and Anghara was rapidly opening up a distance between them. “Anghara! Wait!” he yelled, urging his own mount into a gallop in her wake. “Wait!” I didn’t ask your damned Gods to come to me!
It was debatable if Anghara was still in control of her plunging animal by this time. She seemed to have given the beast its head, merely hanging onto the reins as best she could. When the horse stumbled over some small hollow in the ground, the lurch was enough to throw her clear; she landed well, but hard enough to make Kieran wince. Her horse came to an uncertain stop a few paces later, snorting, aware of a sudden lifting of weight and peering back to see what had become of its rider, before turning its attention to what sparse grazing grew in that place. Short of a desultory flick of its ears, it paid no attention to the approaching thunder of the other horses. Kieran rode up, sliding off his own mount almost before it had come to a full stop, and raced to where Anghara lay.
She was dusty, and the fall seemed to have wrenched open the cut on her arm, where the linen bandage was seeping red. But it didn’t look as though there were any bones broken, although she would probably be black and blue for days.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, even as he dropped to one knee beside her and reached out a hand to her face. A tear squeezed its way past her closed eyelashes and left a wet trail down her dusty cheek. “Kieran…what if I’m never myself again?”
The gray eyes had opened at that last question and there was such unbearable pain in them that all Kieran could do, in the grip of a wave of inexpressible tenderness, was to reach out and take her into his arms. She clung to him, driftwood to a rock.
“Can you get up?” he asked, after a moment of silence. She sniffed loudly and nodded, letting go of him and grimacing as the pain from her wounded arm finally made itself known. Kieran also glanced at it. “We’d better sort that out before we go any further.”
She sat quiescent while he was bent over that task, but as he straightened she said, very calmly, “Tell me, Kieran. What did you see?”
He met her eyes candidly. “Nothing, and that’s the truth. But I felt…the night you cut your…you called them, I woke and felt the wind on my face like a breath—and afterward, while you slept, there were eyes in the night. And now, now there was a whirlwind at my feet, and then the air became…like no air I have ever breathed.”
The God-presence. She knew that well. Her eyes were wide, as though with shock. “I can’t sense them…I can’t feel anything…”
Kieran reached out and shook her shoulder. “Don’t,” he said, aware she had been about to try and channel Sight again, seeking for that which eluded her. “Don’t torment yourself. They came when you called them. Isn’t that enough?”
She laughed, a bitter little laugh which broke on a sob. “Never. It will never be enough.” She recalled with a sudden clarity the touch of unearthly wings, the immortal eyes
set into the great vulture head; the creature who had spoken with her, who had given her the gift of resurrection—al’Khur. Was he beside her now, waiting to take it back? “It will never be enough.” She got up, dusting herself down as best she could with her good hand. “Can we go?” she asked, and her voice was plaintive, nothing left in it of command.
“I’ll get your horse,” said Kieran after a pause, squeezing her shoulder in encouragement.
The horse was lame, which was not entirely surprising; Kieran transferred the packhorse’s load onto Anghara’s beast and her own saddle onto the erstwhile beast of burden. They would be slowed down, but they wouldn’t have kept the horses for much longer anyway; Kieran planned to trade them for camels as soon as they came upon some decent specimens.
They rode off again, north by northeast. And all the time Kieran had the uneasy feeling of someone’s eyes on his back; had he known any Kheldrini, he would have smiled at their adage that one is never alone in the desert. In this moment, he would have known exactly what they meant. But Anghara showed no awareness, and Kieran didn’t bring the matter up. They passed too far from the Shaymir Dance to see it.
That night, deep in the shadow of Kheldrin, Anghara spoke, somewhat unexpectedly, of Roisinan.
“An army,” she said, her knees drawn up into the circle of her arms, staring into the small campfire. “I told Charo to raise me an army. Where is he to get an army to match Sif’s, the army which was my father’s? And if he does, and if I by some miracle hold Sif at bay, what is to stop the Rashin clan from taking advantage and taking Roisinan from both of us? It is my land, my inheritance—but am I throwing it to the wolves just so I can call it my own?”
“It was always yours. As for the army…yes, Sif’s is trained, and it has been devoted to him, but if they learned you were alive and…”
“They knew I was alive when they helped him take Miranei after my father’s death. The knowledge didn’t stop them.”
“I wonder if Fodrun ever regretted his decision?” Kieran said thoughtfully.
Anghara turned to look at him, her eyes twin mirrors reflecting leaping flames. “What do you mean?”
“They won the second battle at Ronval, and won it well. But part of the reason Fodrun supported Sif was that he believed Sif could deal with Tath. But in the years since—well, with half-competent generals, you could have done as well as Sif.”
“He couldn’t be king until he knew no other could claim his throne.”
“And yet—when he had you, he held you…why didn’t he kill you the minute he heard you were in his hands?”
A memory surfaced, old, faded—a little girl crossing a cobbled courtyard, one hand firmly held in the hand of a nurse, the other clutching a small doll. An uneven cobble, a trip, a stumble; the doll went flying. By the time the little girl had straightened herself up and looked around it was already back—in the slim brown hand of a boy with pale blue eyes and hair very like her own. She had politely offered a thank-you, as she had been taught; he smiled—a little tightly, but he smiled. Had that been their first meeting? Anghara couldn’t remember; but she could clearly recall her feelings. It had been only a stirring, but it had been there—a dim potential for affection which had never flowered.
Perhaps Gul Khaima had known all along. A line of its odd prophecy came floating back now: love given to him who hates. Could Anghara have loved her brother? What was it that had stayed his hand?
But Gul Khaima was part of Sight; already she could sense clouds gathering in the back of her mind even as she skated on the edges, with ominous rumblings of thunder warning her of what would follow if she went too far along that path.
She rubbed her temples with her fingers, closing her eyes. “Kieran…if they can’t heal me…if they can’t help me in Kheldrin…I don’t know if I can come back. I can’t claim Roisinan when I am not mistress of my own soul.”
“They will,” said Kieran, with more confidence than he felt—or wanted to feel, given his own glimpses of knowledge of Kheldrini methods, reinforced now by Anghara’s own actions, which he had witnessed firsthand. “But even if they can’t…don’t throw Roisinan away lightly. Sif has reigned for years without Sight. It can be done. And there are many who would give much to see you sit once again on the Throne Under the Mountain. It is yours.”
“For years,” Anghara said, “I lived with that. It is mine. I just wonder, should that time ever come, if I love it enough to renounce it.”
“But if not Sif, and not you…who else is there? Tath? Would you allow your father’s slayer to sit on his throne?”
“That isn’t fair,” she said, wincing.
“I rescued you from Sif’s dungeons. Now it seems I must try to lead you out of another of your own forging.”
They were nearing the outcrop of low, copper-bearing hills lying behind Kieran’s native Coba and many small settlements just like it. The hills divided the settled and fertile basin of Lake Shay from the vast sandy desert stretching away to the north—a spur of the great mountain range which swept south to embrace Miranei and give it its ancient name. As the sun was setting behind the hills on the second day, Kieran shaded his eyes against the low golden rays and pointed to the shallow slopes of the foothills.
“There’s a village,” he said. “We can make it there before it’s completely dark; rest for a day or so. Perhaps they’ll have camels for sale.”
But there had been a strange hesitation in his voice, and Anghara had noticed him cast an uneasy glance behind them. “Are you afraid they’ll follow you in?” she asked steadily enough; obviously the Kheldrini Gods were still Kieran’s companions, if not her own. “Don’t worry, al’Zaan will not enter a place where there are walls; ai’Lan is never strong without sunlight. You’re left with only ai’Dhya, and al’Khur.”
“The Lord of Death?” Kieran said, shivering slightly. Anghara had spoken a little of her Kheldrini sojourn on their journey; Kieran knew, at the very least, the identities of the Old Gods in their Kheldrini incarnations. “That’s quite enough for me.”
But he spurred his horse on with his heel, and before long they had reached the first houses in the village. Most were dark; one or two showed soft yellow lights through small, slit-like windows. One, a large, low building, poured a whole ribbon of light through an open doorway.
“That would be the tavern,” Kieran said. “Most of them offer a bed or two for the occasional traveller—although Shaymir doesn’t see many of those. Come on, we’ll try our luck.”
There was a room, with a single bed; if they were willing to share, the landlord was happy enough to provide an extra pallet if it was required—at a price. “I usually keep two rooms for hire,” the thin, stooped man told them, standing in the doorway with his long arms crossed across a concave chest, “but there’s a husband and wife in the other one, visiting singers. They arrived yesterday, and they’ve got next door…This room’s all that’s going.”
“We’ll take it,” Kieran said. “One more thing. Do you know of anyone who might have camels for sale?”
The landlord’s eyebrow rose a notch. “Bound for the desert, are you?” he inquired conversationally. “Well, I don’t know…old Borre might have one or two he might part with. But I’d be careful there if I was you. He’s a good trader, but I’m not sure if an entirely honest one.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Kieran said. “Where might I find the man?”
“Borre? In my common room right now, like as not,” said the landlord laconically, turning away. “I’ll get you the pallet. Anything else you need?”
Kieran shook his head, and the landlord went out, closing the door behind him.
“You’re different down here,” Anghara said.
Kieran turned his head toward her. “How?”
“I’m not sure…but you seem…a part of this place, somehow. Even your accent changes. I’ve never heard you speak in quite this voice before.”
“Just coming home,” said Kieran succinctly.
“I’ll have them bring up something to eat,” Kieran said, noticing the sudden weariness which cloaked her. “You take the bed; try and sleep, you look tired. I won’t be long.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just downstairs, to the common room,” he said. “I want to try and find this Borre.”
She was on the point of insisting that she go with him, but she was tired. More than physically weary—soul-tired, exhausted from trying to keep at bay something she had once so wholeheartedly embraced. The bed seemed like an excellent alternative to spending a night in a loud tavern common room redolent with ale fumes and the violent reek of coarse Shaymir tobacco, for which the Shay valley was well known. In the end she said nothing, letting him go. Alone in the small room, she gave herself to the embrace of a mattress softer by far than the ground which had been her bed these many weeks, and slept dreamlessly until the sun crept through the shuttered window.
The room was empty as she opened her eyes, but the door was opening even as she blinked to admit Kieran, with a freshly washed face and a striped cotton towel around his neck like some strange ornament.
“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “I’m not sure he’ll remember after all the ale he put away last night, but I’m supposed to meet our friend Borre this morning and pick out three camels in exchange for the horses, if he liked what he saw—he was meant to inspect them this morning. Want to come?”
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