Requies Dawn

by J L Forrest

  “I do not understand.”

  “It was programmed to answer me.”

  Nyahri shook her head.

  “Imagine a world filled with invisible dust,” yw Sabi said, “so tiny it sits between all the other things you can see, and all the dust talks with all the other dust. It knows everything which goes on around it, and it can influence much of that. In all the universe there are only eight voices which it obeys. Imagine this and you’ll be close to imagining Borea.”

  “Eight voices, mistress?”

  “Yes, and mine was one.”

  “Who were the others?”

  “The other Magisters, and Autumn.”

  “Autumn?”

  “Another AI.”

  “I do not understand at all.” Nyahri shook her head. “You are frustrated?”

  “Yes. Let’s get ourselves back to the others, together, and a little more carefully on the way down, hmm?”

  ◆◆◆

  For another day they crossed the permafrost. Lichen-dotted granite roughened the landscape, as if the earth had spit up its own teeth. Glacial lakes glistened below the snow-dusted fields. No trees grew at those hallowed heights, and Nyahri gave thanks when at last they descended into the forests again, before darkness fell and the winds wailed over the highlands.

  Yet the sparse lodge-pole stands of the western slopes did little to slow the gales. A cold night raged, colder than any before it, miserable for E’cwni, Oudwnii, and the horses. The men huddled quietly in their shelters. Only yw Sabi seemed unbitten.

  She stood outside awhile, her head upturned as she listened to the creaking pines. Nyahri bundled beneath the blankets and furs, reaching out only to tighten the lean-to ties, keeping the shelter from flying free in the gusts. Reassured, she pulled her hands back under cover, shivering into a ball, hugging her knees.

  “Yw Sabi?” she called.

  The Atreiani stepped beneath the thatch, pulling the blankets aside only long enough to slip beneath them. Nyahri shivered all the more for the burst of cold and the frosty touch of yw Sabi’s clothing. Nyahri shook, nauseous for the ice in her bones.

  “I cannot get warm,” Nyahri said.

  “Much more of this and you’ll be hypothermic. You put extra blankets on the horses. They don’t need them. We could take them off—”

  “Nay, leave them. If we had brought a full tent, I would have it over us all.”

  “We didn’t, and it would’ve slowed us anyway.” Yw Sabi laid her palm against Nyahri’s face.

  Gods, she is warm, Nyahri thought. The same steady warmth she always has, never faltering. And her scent—gods—she smells good!

  No god of love presided in the E’cwnii pantheon, no god to guide desire, and so Nyahri prayed to all the gods at once to be sure.

  “I want to be warm,” Nyahri said. “It is so cold.”

  Yw Sabi slid her hand behind the clasps of her suit, opening it. She pulled Nyahri’s serape up, off her head, and set it aside, then settled under the blankets against her. Nyahri’s bare flesh pressed against the Atreiani’s.

  Gods, warmth, blessed warmth! Gods, help me!

  Nyahri wrapped her arms around yw Sabi, clinging to her, closing her eyes and nestling into that gossamer hair. Yw Sabi’s arms encircled her in return.

  “Thank you,” Nyahri said.

  “Get warm. Sleep.”

  Bit by bit the cold melted away, and nothing could feel better to Nyahri at that moment than the Atreiani’s skin. She fought sleep, wanting instead to memorize every sensation of yw Sabi’s fingers, arms, shoulders, breasts, stomach—

  Yet exhaustion took its toll. Nyahri closed her eyes and, even as she thought to herself that she must make the moment last, she fell to sleep.

  ◆◆◆

  The next night the freezing winds returned, under a sky nearly clear. The stars shone cruelly, all brighter as only slivers of Lwn and Stashwn remained, hurriedly vanishing.

  Nyahri slept again half undressed beside the Atreiani.

  Yet by the third day the company descended into heavier timbers and warmer nights, and the fiercest winds no longer blew. That evening, yw Sabi made no move to climb under Nyahri’s bedding, choosing instead to sit alone, keeping to her own thoughts.

  Did I misread her? Nyahri wondered, unable to shake her disappointment.

  Her flow had halted and she took time to wash in a brisk stream, water melting from ice not eight hundred hands up the mountainside. She felt much more herself, and yet yw Sabi half ignored her through the night.

  The company marched into successively broader valleys, the highest peaks now behind them. The skies cleared, more autumnal than wintry, and each night the crescent moons waxed.

  Nyahri breathed better as the air became richer. Meadows opened among the trees, a blessing for the horses. High-tundra waters coalesced into streams, then a river, fleet over the rocks but wider and lazier as it crossed a lower plateau. Birches filled the canyon between the river and the ever-widening path. Open fields spread west and south and, in their backdrop, other mountains appeared at the horizon.

  On the fourth day from the heights, the uncovered sun hung at its zenith, the first time Nyahri had felt it in days. Yw Sabi pulled alongside her, pointing down the valley, past a distant expanse of apple groves.

  “See it?” asked the Atreiani.

  Nyahri squinted. “Mistress?”

  “A fire haze, a lot of it.”

  Nyahri cocked her head. “Yea.”

  “Dhaos! What is that ahead?”

  He called back from the front of the company’s line, his voice bright, “The fires of the settlement—Cohltos.”

  “Tomorrow evening? Afternoon?”

  “At most.”

  Yw Sabi pulled Turo’s reigns until the gelding halted. She drew up in the saddle, her hand at the witch-scepter on her hip, a gesture of habit.

  “How many men,” she asked, too quiet for the Oudwnii to hear her, “to make that much smoke?”

  “No knowing,” Nyahri said. “More than I have ever seen. A great tribe, more than when my father knew this valley.”

  Yw Sabi frowned. “There must be thousands living there.”

  “This concerns you?”

  “It may complicate matters.”

  “What matter are the Oudwnii?” Nyahri said. “You will speak with the Templarii, find what you need, and we can go.”

  “I’m anxious to learn how near the settlement lies to the Citadel.” Yw Sabi shook her head. “I may have a serious problem.”

  “What problem?”

  Yw Sabi shook her head, a dismissive gesture. “Despite an age’s change I recognize the lay of this land. Sojourn Temple is close.”

  ◆◆◆

  At dusk they lit proper cooking fires and yw Sabi settled beside the flames, again lost in her thoughts. Nyahri unbridled the horses, letting them graze, the evening air washing over her as she led them from the path. Clear skies domed the world, the stars as bright as Nyahri had ever seen them, even as the crescent moons fattened halfway to quarter. She shouldered the water skins and brought them to the river, kneeling in the darkness to fill them.

  Footsteps sounded in the nearby brush and Nyahri spun, her senses sharpened, her longknife drawn. Dhaos stood at the top of the embankment, the distant firelight playing upon his cheek. He held up his hands, palms outward, and Nyahri angled the blade away.

  “E’cwni.” He smiled.

  Her heart quickened to see him. “Oudwni.”

  “How are you this evening?”

  “What is it to you?”

  He held up his hands. “I am not interrogating you, only asking.”

  “Well enough,” she conceded.

  “I admit I have been trying to guess—how old are you? Twenty?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “You were an adult at twelve, no doubt, but it is quite a journey you have undertaken, for a woman.”

  “You insult me?” She shook her head at him. “Your women may be soft cr
eatures. I am not.”

  “That is clear.” He stepped forward a pace and leaned against a tree, his thumbs hooked into his belt. “Soft or not, made of stone or not, I certainly do not envy your position.”

  “Explain.”

  He nodded toward the campfire, toward yw Sabi. “That you follow her.”

  Nyahri sheathed her knife, half turning from him, and uncapped the first skin. She dipped it into the water, allowing it to fill. “You would not understand.”

  “It is one thing, Nyahri, for a man to die in battle—honor in that—but what she did! That pass was called the Lwvlnda, the Loveland. Now it will be known only as a slaughter yard. She butchered those C’naädin dogs.”

  “Did they not deserve it?”

  “What would stop her from doing the same to us?”

  “You did not try to kill her. You made the right choice when we first met you.”

  “So I am reminded.”

  “In the final measure of it, Dhaos, she saved you and your men, and you know it.”

  “What she did is black magic. She put all of us under a spell. You imperil your spirit to ride with her, to share blankets with her.”

  “My spirit is my concern, as are my blankets.” She uncapped the next water skin, holding it under the icy current, her fingers numbing. “I have thought on the Atreianii since I was a girl. My mother was a healer and spirit-talker, and she worshipped the Atreianii till she died. Thus I would accompany Sultah yw Sabi and discover what she is about.”

  “Discover what she is about? Do not cast yourself as some passive observer. You are at her right hand.”

  “Do not imagine too much.”

  “I imagine nothing. You may as well have already taken her oath.”

  Nyahri looked sidelong at him. “What would you know of any of that?”

  Dhaos grunted, almost a laugh. “More than you, I bet. I am not an uneducated yeoman—I am a chieftain’s son, schooled at Cohltos. I have lived in Cohltos as often as at Aukensis, and for a time I studied with the Templarii. I know some of the history fragments. I know of the oath, what little they tell of it. You will sell your soul, will you not?”

  “Nothing of the kind.”

  “I hope not, for you sake. Yet what will you do if she asks?”

  “Again, what she asks and what I do are none of your business. As it is, I can naysay her, or you, or anyone.”

  Again he held up his hands. “I apologize, but I care what happens to you, Nyahri.”

  “Do not patronize me,” she said, yet she reconsidered.

  Patronize? Nay, his concern feels true, and mayhap he does know more than I. He has seen how I look at yw Sabi and he has seen how I look at him. Gods, I am doomed.

  While he stood so close, while they spoke with one another, she found she liked him even more. Despite his bluster, his heart showed plainly, and his words warmed her.

  “I would like to know you better,” he said. “That is all.”

  “What purpose would that serve?”

  “Can you not imagine it? Someday I will represent Aukensis on the Oudwn council. You are the daughter of a respected E’cwn chieftain—”

  “Here, take these,” she said, lifting the full skins.

  He crouched, accepting them. She wrung her numb hands and wiped them on her breeches.

  “Is it not obvious?” he said. “How I feel about you? I have watched you all the way from Aukensis. We are a good match for each other.”

  She groused. Gods! Must he do this?

  “You are trying to lure me,” she said, “that is all.”

  He grinned at first, then his smile faded. “Do not trust the Atreiani. They called Sultah yw Sabi the Betrayer. Did you know that? She was evil among the evil.”

  “There is more to the stories. You should know this.”

  “Mayhap, but would you risk it?”

  “The stories say she betrayed the gods—they say little more than that.”

  “Have you asked her about it?”

  Nyahri tilted her head. “Nay, but—”

  “You should.”

  “You say you studied, Dhaos?”

  He nodded hesitantly. “Yea.”

  “You remember who she betrayed the gods for?”

  “I confess, I do not.”

  “Ask your Templarii that when you see them next.”

  “I will,” he said, “but let me convince you another way. Sultah yw Sabi has brought us a wonderful opportunity, you and me.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I like you, Nyahri, and I do not think I am so unlikeable. After the devil is done with her business, moved on her way, you and I could sew peace. Can you imagine Oudwnii and E’cwnii united? We might bring the Inwnii into our fold, my cousins the Qebeccêi, the Bk’ferii, and more besides. We could have a peace which stretches two months’ ride in any direction, good trade, safety.”

  Dhaos set the water skins aside, leaned forward, and stretched his arm toward her.

  “All you must do,” he said, “is take my hand. We can walk, talk, take it as it comes.”

  Beautiful man! Nyahri thought. His face by such gentle light, the lie of his hair. She leaned past his outstretched hand and took hold of the skins.

  “Nay,” she said.

  From above the riverbank, yw Sabi called, “Nyahri! Come. There’s schooling to be done.”

  “I must go, Dhaos.”

  “Nyahri—”

  As she passed him, she let an impulse take her: laying her cold hand against his cheek, she kissed his mouth before scampering up the bank. Nyahri kept her gaze forward, telling herself she did not care what expression he wore, that nothing could come of it, that she kissed him only to taste what she’d never know, that she kissed him only for spite.

  In her absence the fire had dwindled. Yw Sabi stood outside its light, pointing at the horizon. In the far distance, Swyn Templr’s pillar flared, brightened and faded, brightened and faded. It had done so since time immemorial.

  “Let’s have some lessons,” yw Sabi said. “We’ll need more wood on the fire.”

  “Yea, Atreiani.”

  Nyahri glanced once more at the beacon, then back toward the water. Dhaos had slipped away unseen.

  {Interim: Love Letters}

  Beloved Ekaterina—

  What a gift! The valley equals the mountain; the mountain is nothing without it. The earth equals the sky; the sky floats into nothing without it. The low equals the high; heights mean nothing without it. You top me from the bottom, lovely one, but I won’t mind—you’re my equal.

  This letter will arrive only a day before me. It will reenter by drone at Mach, but my shuttle descends tomorrow and I’ll be twelve hours down the corkscrew.

  My business took longer than expected and your absence has become a pang. I want to open the Ma’at doors and find you— dressed for dinner and an evening’s conversation—or seated with your cello—or taking my hand to lead us to bed—or naked and kneeling where I might plunder you in the evening hall—or ready to dance a waltz with me—or only smiling, for what could be better?

  Each day without you, my claimèd, is a starvation.

  Yours,

  —S

  From The Collected Letters

  {18}

  The next day they reached the valley farms which surrounded Cohltos. Harvesters worked the fields, men and women and children by the hundreds, hurrying to collect the last crops before winter. Mud-and-stone houses surrounded common courtyards.

  Yw Sabi wore her hood and her E’cwn leathers, her telltale hair tucked well out of sight. Yet the dirty Oudwn faces still gawked at the women ahorse, some following and muttering in their amazement.

  “The chieftain of Cohltos,” Dhaos said to yw Sabi, “will expect you to visit him, you know, sooner or later.”

  “What is his name?” she asked.

  “Shwn Pawl Oudwn of the House Cohlton.”

  “Shwn Pawl will wait,” she said, her voice low, “as will anyone else
who wishes an audience with me. Take us to the Citadel, Dhaos.”

  He nodded. “I expected you would say so, Atreiani. I will convey it to Shwn Pawl myself.”

  Farm fields gave way to villages, then to a township, hundreds living in one settlement. Many dozens of such townships dotted the valley, a population of twenty thousand. Nyahri had never imagined such a place might exist. E’cwnii tribes never grew to more than three hundred, and she could name everyone in her father’s camp. She wondered if everyone in Cohltos might know everyone else’s name, then scoffed and dismissed the idea. She thought them more like animals, living in pens, than a community.

  Along narrow streets, baked-brick buildings pressed against one another. In the north, a foundry bellowed black smoke, its stack rising a hundred fifty hands. At the urban edge, hundreds of cattle crowded behind fences. A drove of pigs wandered the streets. Oudwn tradesmen, their doors flung open for business, raised their hands to welcome the archers. Children played with dogs in whatever grassy patches remained unclaimed. As Dhaos led them toward the city’s heart, Swyn Templr’s slender beacon tower drew Nyahri’s attention. It persisted in its slow, luminous pulse. The pinnacle measured two thousand hands high, taller than Abswyn’s had been.

  For a moment the fire and terror of Abswyn’s immolation roared in Nyahri’s memory. What would happen if, as at Abswyn, the Citadel of Swyn Templr also exploded?

  Surrounding the tower’s base, a stonework edifice stood ten times the size of Orÿs Lodge. This was S’Eret Fortress, built of tremendous mortarless boulders, its high walls fenestrated by murder holes and iron-braced gates. Crows fluttered from its crenellations, cawing and strutting and winging between broad turrets. Nyahri looked to yw Sabi, but the Atreiani kept her thoughts to herself, making eye contact with no one.

  “What do you think of Cohltos?” Dhaos asked and, not waiting for an answer, he said, “Welcome to Sojourn Temple.”

  He brought them to the fortress gate, and he walked all the way to the front doors. Without so much as a pause he drew his longknife and hammered its pommel on the doors. “Pay attention! You cold keepers! Come and open up! I bring you a visitor you do not dare ignore.”