"The man's a fool, but not an idiot. On his doorstep, aren't you? Of course he knows. Thanks to him, you're my Favorite, and so I brought you here to play your part. But Chingetai doesn't want you showing what a mess he's made of things, so he means to use a substitute."
"But now the Burnt Man says he won't be fooled."
"Aye. Troubling, that, although he might just as well have meant getting a stick of a girl presented to him as his son instead of the strapping boy he expects." She burped again, hawked raucously like mountain clearing its throat, and spat a gob of flame into the dying fire. "G'ah. Heartburn. Earth and fire don't mix well. I don't see how this is going to play out, and that's a fact. On top of it all, if there's a bloody big bang, we need the Tishooo to blow the ash northward over the Barrier, and he's home sulking. Thinks he should have a bigger part in the midsummer festival. Huh! Every year we get this nonsense. Mind you, I can protect the Merikit, little as they deserve it, and it might be a good thing in the long run to bury you lot up to your eyebrows in hot ash, but I don't half like this northern wind. It reeks of the shadows."
To Jame, it simply reeked, mostly of sulfur. She hadn't considered how a major eruption might affect the Riverland. When the mountain had been a mere smoking bump on the horizon, it hadn't seemed to matter much. Perhaps, in real space, that's where it still was, too far away to be a threat. On the other hand, what did she know about volcanoes, other than that they tended inconveniently to explode?
"Ah." The Earth Wife's mirror-fire eyes shifted to something behind Jame and her crooked mouth twitched into something like a smile, red light from within a jagged line between her lips. "Here's someone come to call. Hold still."
Even with the warning, Jame started as a pair of slim, white hands appeared over her shoulders. She thought they were going for her face but instead, as she held herself rigidly still, they gathered up her loose hair and smoothed it back.
"Soft," said a voice behind her, odd and husky as if it hadn't spoken in a long time, and it spoke in High Kens. Fingers took up combing out her tangled locks where she had left off. When she tried to turn, however, a firm hand on the top of her head prevented her.
"Who is it?" she hissed at the Earth Wife, even as the glimmer of an answer occurred to her. After all, how many people had she encountered since her arrival here, and how many Kencyr Highborn wandered the wilds, as free as the wind through the trees?
"You should know. He's one of you lot. The Merikit call him Mer-kanti."
Jame thought she could put a different name to the stranger, but not here, where the very sound of it might draw those enemies sworn to his destruction. Meanwhile, his deft fingers slide through her hair, smoothing, separating, gently tugging.
"That feels good," she murmured, surrendering to his touch.
The Earth wife laughed. "You folk are peculiar. D'you have to go into the wilderness to give and take pleasure freely? Mind you, Mer-kanti's passions are obscure. He finds company in stacked stones, a painted mare, and the flight of crown jewel-jaws. We feel him glide through our seasons. Earth, air, wind, and fire are all one to him, although daylight hurts his eyes. Look for him in shadow and darkness, or where the red blood flows."
"And those who hunt him?"
"The Merikit gave up long ago. Their quarrel with your kind was none of his making, and he spares where he might easily kill. Others come, sometimes, from the south, but they leave their bodies to richen my soil."
Although she held herself as still as still, Jame felt the pulse in her throat quickly under that light, caressing touch. "Their blood too?"
"Ah." She thought she heard the hint of smile in the other's voice. "That's his business, isn't it? But enough of that. I foresee fire and ash, a peculiar dawn and darkness at noon. What happens next depends in part on which way the wind blows, and I mistrust anything that comes from the north. Best you were gone, girl. After all, the solstice is tomorrow."
"What? It can't be . . . or did I somehow miss a day?"
"Yes, getting here. Sometimes folding the land takes time. By the way, I like your big horse. Not many are up to my weight. Fare you well. Hic!"
She tried to stifle it, but the belched flame erupted like a geyser from her mouth and set her straw thatch of hair on fire.
Jame leaped to her feet, meaning to push her into the stream to extinguish her, but Mother Ragga's blazing figure crumbled at her touch. Out of it sprang the terrified, singed foxkin, landing in Jame's arms and scuttling inside her jacket for shelter. Mer-kanti had disappeared. In the distance, the mountain grumbled and spat.
Jame sighed. Life is strange, she thought, and went to bed with a half-knit foxkin curled up under her chin.
Chapter XVIII: Solstice
Summer 66
I
Jame woke the next morning, disoriented.
Surely it had all been a dream, and not a very good one at that. The Burnt Man and the Dark Judge, the Earth Wife and the creeping mountain, a green mare and a half-knit foxkin . . .
". . . quip . . ." said something furry under her chin, and snuggled down again with a sleepy kneading of claws.
All right. She would grant the foxkin.
And the mountain. It was rather hard to miss in that it now loomed overhead, taking up most of the northern sky. If it had looked any closer, she would have been under it. Around that ridiculous spine at its top it was smoking like a chimney, assuming anyone would want to burn brimstone and rotten eggs. The ground under her head rumbled steadily—rock's equivalent of a warning growl: Just you wait.
Then she remembered. The wait was almost over. This was the summer solstice. That also rattled her, coming as it did a day before she had expected it, again like a bad dream.
But I'm not ready.
A sudden blare of horns made her jump and the foxkin dig in its claws. Distorted by hill and mountain, the ruckus presumably came from the Merikit village hidden by a turn farther up the Silver. A cloud of ash-laden vapor drifted eastward toward it from the volcano's peak, some settling to darken the summit snow, some lifting back into the air to distort the sunrise before the prevailing north wind caught and pushed it south. The solar rim had just appeared between two eastern peaks, a bow of improbable sharp blue spiked with turquoise rays in turn edged with shimmering green. So began the longest day of the year, in a haze of smoke, a discordant blat of horns, and a stench of sulfur.
For a moment, Jame wished that she had acceded to Index's demand and brought the old scrollsman with her. He might have had some idea what she should expect, at least from the Merikit. She felt like someone on the edge of a great pageant, knowing that she had an important role in it and fretting that she wasn't there. At the same time, no one would thank her for stepping forward to claim her part. The Earth Wife had as good as told her to leave. If she had any sense, she would have saddled Chumley last night and ridden away as fast as his great, galumphing hooves would take her.
She rose and began in a distracted way to break up camp as the foxkin rummaged, chittering, in a saddle-bag, looking for breakfast. Over the past few days, Jame had forced herself to eat a bit of this or that—hard bread, a crust of cheese, some withered apples, even the squishy little sprout heads, although those had come back up faster than they had gone down. Not much remained. However, the foxkin's busy quest reminded her of the other bag of provisions, still sunk in the icy water. She waded out to retrieve it.
The contents were, of course, wet and cold, but also well-preserved. Jame extracted the roast chicken and sniffed at it suspiciously. To her surprise, it smelled good. Since when had anything done that? She tore off a leg and was about to take a gingerly nibble when the rathorn's head snaked over her shoulder and snatched it out of her hand.
Jame sprang to her feet, aghast. She tried to grab it back before he swallowed any bone splinters, but the colt backed away, raising his head out of reach like a horse refusing the bit. Then he spat out a mouthful of intact bones, gulped down the meat, and made another dive at the car
cass. Both suddenly ravenous, they wrestled over it briefly before it tore apart. Jame tumbled over backward, clutching a pair of wings. The colt retreated, snorting, with the rest.
Gnawing on her prize, she watched him pin his to the ground with a dew-spur and frantically rasp flesh from bone with his tongue. The latter must be barbed, as with some large hunting cats. All this time, she had only needed the proper treat to break his stubborn resistance, but how could she have guessed that he had a passion for cooked meat? For that matter, it seemed to have surprised him as much as it had her; after all, there weren't many roast chickens running about loose in the wild.
The last scrap gone, he shoved his nose into the wet saddle back looking for more, then jerked it back with the foxkin clinging to his nasal horn. As he backed in a circle, trying to shake the creature loose, Jame gathered the chicken bones before Jorin could get at them and threw the lot into the stream. It too was beginning to steam and stink; ground water as well as run-off must contribute to it. She had retrieved the saddle-bag none too soon. Meanwhile, Chumley, the painted mare (where had she come from?), Bel, and Jorin were lined up, accidentally according to height, watching the rathorn's wild gyrations with wary fascination.
As the foxkin scuttled over his ivory mask, the colt's red eyes crossed, trying to follow it.
"Quip!" it said, popping up between his ears and sticking its sharp, inquisitive nose into one of them.
The colt squealed, reared, and went over backward, scattering his audience but not shaking his tormenter. He lurched back to his feet and careened off, bucking, across the meadow.
Meanwhile, Jame had dumped the contents of the bag onto the ground. Was there anything left to tempt the colt or, for that matter, herself? Ah. Some beef jerky and a few slabs of smoked ham, perfect for a picnic under an active volcano.
Before she could decide what to eat and what to offer, the sun lifted clear of the mountains and drums in the Merikit village greeted its ascent.
"BOOM-Wah-wah . . . BOOM-Wah-wah . . ."
The sound was approaching, gaining definition as the procession cleared intervening hills, but she couldn't see it from the meadow. Nor was there any reason why she had to, Jame told herself. She couldn't do any good although, given her nature, she might inadvertently do harm. Still, the drums called.
"BOOM-Wah-wah-BOOM!"
She stuffed a greasy slab of meat into a pocket and set off at a trot down the meadow. By the time she reached the bottom and dived among the ferns under the shadow of overhanging boughs, she was running. Before her, the stream leaping over a cliff into the torrent below. On the other side of the Silver's chasm rose sandstone bluffs, still deep in shadow, with the ruins of Kithorn on their summit. Could she snag her grapnel on the opposite heights and swing over? No. Too far. Then climb.
Of the trees offered to her, a black walnut some two hundred feet downstream loomed the tallest. She stripped off her gloves and tucked them into her belt, wishing for the first time that she had clawed toes as well as fingers. The corrugated bark gave good hand-holds, though, as did sturdy boughs. Her hands soon stank of the bruised leaves' distinctive, astringent scent. The trunk bifurcated, once, twice, and again into a limb stretching over the Silver. Jame crawled out on it.
A good thing I'm not afraid of heights, she thought, then froze as the branch dipped, groaning, under her weight. From below rose the thunder of water and mist that wrapped the tree in wet, slippery moss. She was a long, long way up.
At least from here she could see over the broken wall and tower, which her brother had accidentally burned down the previous fall. How strange, as it were, to be looking into Marc's past. After all, he had grown up in the shattered keep now spread out below her. Like a score of minor keeps dotting the edges of Rathillien, all but forgotten, Kithorn had kept watch on the Barrier with Perimal Darkling according to the Kencyrath's ancient trust. Yes, she had been here before, but too close really to see how small a place it was, how desperate its defiance against the dark must have been.
In the center of its inner court was a wide well-mouth, rimmed with serpentine marble, the relic of a time long before Hathir and Bashti had laid their arrogant claims to this ancient land. All the Riverland keeps were built on the sites of Bashtiri or Hathiri fortresses, but these in turn had been raised over the ruins of still older hill forts. However, none of the latter were more potent than this one.
From her perch, Jame couldn't quite see over the well's lip down to the ring of teeth within or the muscular red throat below that, but she knew they were there. After all, on Summer Eve she had been dropped down it and had had to climb back up, fast, for this was the mouth of the River Snake whose vast length ran beneath the Silver from one end to the other, whose restless stirrings could throw the land into convulsions.
Although Marc's lord had allowed the Merikit private access for their rituals, he had not known what they were doing until he had accidentally learned, in a year of violent quakes, that they meant to throw a hero down the well to fight the snake. This he had forbidden. Afraid that their world was about to be shaken apart, the Merikit had tried to take the garrison hostage to prevent its interference, but someone had panicked, ending with the slaughter of every Kencyr there except for Marc, who had been off by himself, hunting. And so the hills had been closed.
If the Earth Wife had spoken true, the terrible irony was that the Kencyr and the Merikit shared a charge to maintain the Barrier against Perimal Darkling here at the Riverland's northern end. Instead, the Merikit cut Kencyr throats and the Kencyr—at least in Lord Caineron's case—spread flayed Merikit skins on their floors as trophies of the hunt. What a waste on both sides, thought Jame, and what a potentially fatal error.
The drums stopped. A number of Merikit were already in the courtyard, hanging back around the edges, but all attention focused on the four bizarre, gnarled figures who now entered. Ash-smeared, with goat-udders swaying under their long, unbound hair, the shamans trotted around a square drawn in charcoal on the flagstones, at whose center was the well-mouth. Jame couldn't hear them over the water, but she knew that the bells strapped to their ankles were going chink-chink-chink in unison with each step. Interspersed between them were three other Merikit made up to represent Earth Wife, Falling Man, and the Eaten One—earth, air, and water. Last of all came fire, the Burnt Man, muffled in a cloak. That, undoubtedly, was the chief, Chingetai, pretending to be invisible until his time came to take center stage.
He entered the square with the rest of the Four, each at his own corner, and the shamans prepared to close it. That left two, the Favorite and the Challenger, the first in red britches, the second in green.
It seemed that Chingetai meant to enact the entire solstice fertility rite, just as if he hadn't already done so, prematurely, on Summer Eve, and gotten saddled with her, Jame, as the Earth Wife's current Favorite and his presumed heir. Jame recognized the substitute Favorite as the former Challenger—the one who had jammed the victor's ivy crown on her head and shoved her into the square in his place. He didn't look any happier in red than he had in green. His opponent also seemed reluctant to enter the square, only doing so when poked from behind with a spear.
Bloody, stupid Merikit, the Dark Judge had said. Think they can fool us, do they? Not again. Never again.
The hillmen had good reason to be nervous. In trying to change the rules, Chingetai was literally playing with fire, and with their lives.
Tied to the smithy door was a goat, who would hardly have looked so bored if it had known what role it was about to play. At least the loser wasn't going to share Sonny's fate, which had almost been Jame's own.
Now should come the closing of the square and the opening of sacred space, but nothing happened.
Of course, thought Jame. They were already in sacred space, or what passed for it this time around.
The shaman in Chingetai's corner—probably Tungit, Index's old friend—tried to build a bone-fire, but it kept falling apart. He spoke urgently over his s
houlder to the chief, but a sharp gesture silenced him. Jame suddenly wondered if, like his dead son, Chingetai couldn't see the changed landscape around him. Some people were like that, psychically blind. Perhaps, to him, the smoking mountain was still a bump in the distance. Perhaps that would even save him if it exploded. She guessed, though, that both Tungit and the substitute Favorite could see all too clearly what loomed above, and that it made them very, very nervous.
When the Challenger glanced away for a moment, the Favorite snatched off his ivy crown, popped it onto the other's head, and threw himself on the ground. He had deliberately forfeited without a fight. Again.
A moment's stunned pause, and then Chingetai surged out of his corner, roaring with rage. The Burnt Man's bone-fire scattered before him.
WHOOP.
The earth leaped, throwing everyone off their feet.
Jame's tree shook as if hit solidly in the trunk by something massive. She scrabbled to maintain her grip in a hail of falling leaves and unripe nuts, slipped, and found herself hanging upside down by her knees, cap gone, hair tumbling free. Through the quivering canopy overhead, she saw snatches of the mountain top as it exploded. The spine disintegrated into a black, billowing cloud, out of which shot chunks of red-hot rock, trailing fire.
To Ride a Rathorn Page 37