Harpy's Flight
Page 19
“The poison runs too deep in her,� he intoned. “She will hide in death before she lets it go. Cora is set apart from us.�
Nils walked away. The crowd swayed uncertainly, then flowed after him, milling a moment before they parted to go around Cora’s body. Ki found herself on her knees beside Cora. She wanted to kill Nils, but found she could spare no time for it right now. Cora’s lips were purpling; they puffed in and out with every breath. Ki took one of the cold wrinkled hands. She held it to her cheek. The fingers bent stiffly against her face. Cora was gone, not here. Ki screamed soundlessly, wordlessly, and dove in after her.
She knew not what she did, nor how she did it. A terrible presentiment told her where to seek for Cora. She was behind the last door, the black door at the end of the corridor in Ki’s mind. Cora had found at last the despoiled aerie, the dead Harpies. Ki seized her, dragged her away.
It was the deep, warm waters again that Ki swam through. She towed Cora, who did not care to come, who dangled from her hands like a stillborn kitten. Ki fought their way up, past the ugly swirling images, past the dead Harpies that repeated themselves in endless postures, each more ungainly than the last. Ki pushed aside Sven’s ravaged body, shouldered away the ruined, crumpled Harpy at the base of the cliff. The wreckage of her children bobbed past her, eyes empty over bloody cheek holes. Ki floundered on. But the water was deep and endless. There was no surface to swim to, no exit that Ki could find.
Someone pinched her savagely, slapped her a blow that rocked her head. Ki cried out in anger and pain. She sprang up at Lars. A rough shove sent her sprawling onto the still wet grass. Lars gathered up his mother’s faintly stirring body.
“Sometimes only pain can help you come back,� he said briefly. He staggered to his feet, Cora drooping from his arms. Ki looked about her in confusion. No one else was in the field. Ki was shaking with sudden cold, alone, so alone. The morning sounds pressed in on her ears with incredible clarity. She heard the clank of a dropped shovel. She turned to see Rufus and Kurt coming at a run from the barn, their abandoned tools on the ground behind them.
“You two must have an affinity for joining. Usually a feat such as that takes much liquor from the Harpies.� Ki dragged herself to her feet, stumbled after Lars who was talking as he walked. “I wonder,� he said, “if you two were ever completely parted after the Rite.�
“The others have gone.�
“You have been gone yourself for more than a little while. I thought you both had gone forever. Nils has taken the others away for meditation, fasting, and purification. Only we outcasts are left.�
“We.� Ki felt the word gingerly.
Lars wrinkled his mouth at the word. It turned into a small, tired smile. Rufus met them, took his mother from Lars’s arms. They hurried to the house. Ki, forgotten now, came slowly behind them. She was drained of all strength. She felt she could drop down onto the dew-wet grass and sleep eternally. Yet within her there leapt up a sudden spark, an alertness. She was awake. She felt a sudden urge to explore every part of her mind, as she might feel her body for broken limbs after a bad fall. She was complete again, once more in full control. No will ruled her but her own. The indecision that had plagued her for the last few months, the feeling of numbness, was fled. Cora. Ki mouthed the word silently. Ki had not realized it. She wondered if Cora had, if she had used it. Too late to worry about it now. She stumbled to the barn, to her wagon, to her cuddy, and into her bed. Sleep seized her.
Kurt had not dared to enter the cuddy. Instead, he had banged loudly on the door of it, communicating his urgency with his frenzied battering. Ki stumbled across the cuddy to slide the door open. His face was white in the light of the candle he bore.
“Grandma wants you. She says you must come now.�
He would have scuttled away, candle and all, if Ki had not seized him by the shoulder. He shrank from her touch, and Ki realized with an ache what a strange and menacing spirit she must seem to him. Even now, when he was as outcast as she was, still he flinched from her touch. She did not release him. She would not let him be afraid of her any longer.
“Don’t go too fast,� she whispered hoarsely. “I’ll fall in the dark.�
He turned wide eyes up to her. Then he guided her out of the barn and across the dark yard. Ki was nearly to the door of the house before the reality of the night seized her. She had slept the whole day away. The big house was unnaturally quiet. She entered the common room, to find it, too, in semi-darkness. Its great hearth fire had burnt out.
“They haven’t come back,� Kurt murmured as she looked about in surprise. Ki squeezed his shoulder gently, meaning to reassure and comfort him. He nearly dropped the candle.
Cora’s room was lit with tall white tapers. Death candles, Ki thought. Cora’s gaunt hands were claws on the bedding. Her hair was awry, her lips still too dark. But her eyes opened as Ki came in. They were still bright, bird-black. The body might fail, but not the mind. She gestured at her sons feebly as they stood, one to either side of her bed.
“Rufus. To the field and fetch Ki’s team. Quickly.� Her voice was a cracked whisper, but full of command. “Lars. Take Kurt. Open the barn, and help make the wagon ready for the team. Use no lights! And watch that Sigurd! He’s still as fractious as when he was a colt. Keep silent!�
Rufus went, but Lars lingered, eyes full of worry.
“Mother, you are ill yet, and weak. Cannot this wait? Do you cast Ki out in the dark of night? She was sister to us, and daughter to you…�
“Fool!� Cora broke in. She gasped for a breath, and her color became worse. “I have barely enough strength for what I must do, and you wish to complicate it with talk. Long before you discovered her worth, I loved and valued Ki. And though she may not recognize it, no one’s love has been truer through these days. Go, Lars. Take Kurt. My words are not for your ears.�
They went reluctantly. Ki and Cora listened for the scuff of their footsteps to fade. Cora drew together her strength. Ki moved closer to the bedside and picked up one of Cora’s hands. Cold, still.
“No time,� Cora sighed, pulling her fingers free of Ki’s. “You must leave tonight and travel swiftly. Get over the mountains. I have heard the Harpies don’t go there. Soon they will know who killed the mother, who dropped the torch in the nest. The male will demand revenge. Neither Harpy nor Human in the valley will deny it to him. You will be hunted. You have so little time to escape.�
“How will they know?� Ki pressed.
“As I finally knew.� Cora coughed without energy. “They, too, know without knowing. It was why I could not make them accept you. I hid it from myself, refused to see what you had shown me. I told myself those wild images were what you might do if I did not keep you here, safe, beside me. But the real knowledge was there, closing me off from the Harpies. I will make no reconciliation with them. If I did, I would be your betrayer. I could not hide the knowledge from them. Their minds are strong, stronger than Nils’s. No one keeps secrets from the Harpies. Ki, if I know, there are others that know. I was closest to you that night. I received the strongest images. But Marna was there, and Holland, and little Edward. In all innocence, they will condemn you to death when next they offer tribute to the Harpies. There is no way to stop it from happening.�
Cora paused, giving Ki time to sort the sense from her breathless words. She took each breath with effort, released each with a sigh.
“After I leave,� Ki asked reluctantly, “what will happen here?�
“You mean with the Harpies?� Cora asked. “I do not think they will be harsh with us. They will demand greater tribute. They will make no reprisals, I think. They would not harm Rufus, or Lars, or I, for then
who would remain to tend the lands that grow the cattle? Reprisals they reserve for those who leave, or those who speak openly against them. Such as Sven. Such as my brother.�
Ki reeled with the impact of Cora’s words. “Haftor knows that?� she asked incredulously.
“He was there,� Cora replied with an effort. “Just a boy at the time. Turned his mind for a while—he didn’t speak for the longest time—but I brought him back from it. It has given him a strangeness. And when you came, with your tidings, well, there’s the knowledge in him somewhere, trying to get out. I hope it never does.�
“So do I,� breathed Ki. She leaned down, put her arms about Cora.
“I shall miss the strength I took from you,� Cora admitted softly. Gently, she pushed Ki away. “In the cupboard,� she said awkwardly.
“What?�
“The money, for Sven’s lands. You must take it.�
Ki straightened, looked down on Cora bemusedly. Then she crossed to the cupboard and opened it. The colt-hide sack was heavy. It clinked. Ki turned back to Cora.
“I accept your money for the lands, Cora. You have paid me for it honorably. In the past I have refused the love you offered me, Cora. Now I take it, too, with thanks. And you, in return, must accept mine.� Ki raised the bag, kissed it ceremoniously. She dropped it on the foot of Cora’s bed. She smiled at the foolishness of the situation. Cora’s bird-bright eyes were wet. Ki nodded her head to her and left the room.
Her goodbyes to Lars and Rufus were short and uncomfortable. There was too much to say. It could not be cut to fit into words. Eyes said much that tongues could not form. Rufus hugged her shyly, but Lars’s embrace was fierce and hard to break from. Ki scrambled onto the seat of her wagon, refusing to see how Lars wept. She slapped the reins hard on the grays’ backs. The night received Ki and closed behind her. When she looked back, not a light showed in the home that had been Sven’s.
The road was silent about her, no lights showing in the smaller cottages that she passed. But as her team came abreast of Mama’s, a small figure darted in front of it, holding aloft a flickering candle dim as a firefly. Ki pulled the team up short.
“Haftor!� called Kurt’s voice softly, and the door of the cottage opened. “She’s here!� Kurt said, and then the candle was pinched out, and Kurt darted off into darkness.
Haftor stood limned a moment in the lamplight, framed in the door of Mama’s house. Ki sat silent on the wagon. She heard a light footfall behind Haftor and glimpsed Lydia, pale as a spirit as she moved listless to his side, carrying a bulky sack. Haftor took it from her, saying soft words that did not carry to Ki’s ears. He pushed her gently back into the cottage, closing the door behind her. He came swiftly, to pass up to Ki the bundle of provisions. She took them without thanks, opening her cuddy door and setting them within.
All words were inadequate. Ki felt she must leave so much unfinished. She climbed down slowly from the seat to stand before him. “I am sorry we make our ending like this,� she faltered.
Haftor’s eyes were like dark, cold river rocks. He trapped her hands in his, holding them so tightly it hurt.
“This is no ending, Ki. You can’t run away from it that easily. Cora will not be able to contain such a secret as she holds. You killed those Harpies. That’s a debt paid only with blood. Neither time nor distance will heal it. Harpies don’t give up on blood debts. Neither do the men who serve them. A life must be given.�
Haftor’s eyes had gone deep and mad in the semi-light. Ki tried to step back from him, feeling menaced by his words and the way he growled them. Should he choose to try and kill her, Ki knew she could find no spirit to resist him. He had known, then. As Cora had.
He read the fear in her eyes, understood the way she shrank from him. He released her hands. “They don’t know yet. They cannot put the pieces together as I did. To kill a Harpy for vengeance is too foreign an idea to them. They see the pieces, but cannot comprehend the whole. But Nils will. By morning he will know, and there will be no stopping him. He will want your blood himself. If the Harpies do not find you, Nils, or another like him, will. So do not tarry.�
He turned to her wagon, surprised her by climbing up the wheel before her. He took up the reins, slapped them against the team. The team started at his unaccustomed hand and stepped out as swiftly as beasts their size could.
“The roads will be watched, by men in the trees and Harpies in the air. So I will show you a way forgotten, branched over by forest growth and so foul and pitted that all think no wagon may pass there. It will take you long to travel that way. But no one will watch for you there.�
Haftor hurried the horses, bidding Ki sternly to be silent that he might listen. Ki opened her mouth in alarm when he suddenly turned the team off the road and into a morass. Their hooves sank and made sucking noises as they struggled. A shallow layer of moving water overlay the mud and reeds the team plowed through. The wagon jolted off the solid roadbed and into the mush. The wheels sank. Haftor slapped the reins hard down on the horses. The grays hunched and humped against their traces. Ki’s heart sank with her wagon wheels.
“Pull, damn you!� hissed Haftor in a carrying whisper. Their heads went down, their front legs bent, and the team went nearly to their knees. The wagon moved. In sporadic jerks and tugs, the wagon lurched through the mire and onto coarse gravel and then up over deep moss and scrub brush. It was uphill briefly over a slight rise, and then they were descending, and Ki looked down a dark avenue of trees. Tall grass and brush swept the bottom of the wagon. Tall trees had overgrown the unused road and arched over it, sheltering it from the night sky.
“It’s going to be bad traveling,� Haftor warned her as he pulled the team in. “There may be logs down across the road further on. You’ll just have to chop them and use the team to pull them aside. I know that a stream crosses it in one place. It shouldn’t give you too much of a problem.�
He hugged her fiercely and kissed the side of her face roughly. His silver wrist-piece caught for a moment in her hair. Before she could recover from her surprise, he untangled himself and leapt from the wagon. He gave Sigurd a slap on the rump before he stepped aside, and the spooked horse surged forward in his harness.
The road had been as bad as Haftor had said it would be. The provisions he had given her had run out before she reached a true road again. But she had left that evil trail at last, of that she was sure—she remembered emerging from the forest onto a wide, sunlit road—and she wondered at the darkness about her now, and the terrible jerking and swaying.
It was the swaying that was making her sick. She opened her eyes a little, only to see whiteness rushing past her face far below. She was cold and monstrously uncomfortable; she could not locate her arms or determine what had become of her hands. She had no memory of where she was or what she was doing. The white stuff below her rose suddenly, to strike her in the face with coldness. Snow! She reared back her head as far as she could and let out a strangled cry. Presently, the swaying stopped. With the cessation of the motion, she could separate her body from her discomfort. Her thighs, belly, and chest were pressed heavily to something warm, solid, and living. Her head hung down lower than the rest of her body. That accounted for the throbbing sensation in her face. That much was obvious. The circumstances of the rest of the situation eluded her.
She heard snow crunch behind her. Someone seized her firmly by the hips and pulled until her feet hit the ground. Her hands were loosely but securely bound behind her. She found with the sudden change in position that she was dizzy, too dizzy to stand. She swayed to one side and was caught by strong hands, steadied, with her face nestled against rough cloth.
“Sven?� she questioned blindly, di
soriented totally in time and space.
“No, Vandien. I’m sorry, Ki, but it was necessary. I didn’t want to do it, but you left me no choice. How’s your head?�
It hurt. It made no sense, but it hurt. She tried to raise a hand to touch the throbbing place, but was reminded that her hands were still bound.
“Untie me.�
She felt Vandien shake his head. She was still leaning into his cloak, talking to his chest. It was humiliating, but she knew without his support she would fall.
“First we talk, then we untie. I want to be sure you understand my reasons and don’t try to kill me.�
“What did you hit me with?�
“Not that it matters, but a rock. Back at the time when you were sitting on my chest, looking as if you might arrange my transport into the next world, my hand came upon it. It’s been in my pocket since then. Ki, believe me, I hoped never to have a use for it. But you are a stubborn person, the stubbornest I have ever encountered.�
“What happened? What are you doing with me?�
“After I hit you, I put you on Sigurd. He has little love for me, I fear, and did his best to stomp me until he realized he could not stomp me without stomping you. The ridge of ice helped; I was above him. Sigmund is a more reasonable beast. Besides, both of them were hampered by their harness. Once I had supplies loaded, I cut us loose from the wagon and got them moving. We have made good time.� He paused, waiting, but Ki said nothing. “I could have left you there, you know. It would have been far easier for me. But I didn’t. I intend to get you out of this pass alive. I feel that by doing that I will have paid back what I owe you. Even if I do it against your will. Now.�
Dimly, she felt his hands fumbling at her wrists. A thin cord dropped away into the snow. Vandien bent and retrieved his story string. Her hands and arms tingled strangely as she brought them up and rubbed at her wrists.