by Garon Whited
I made a couple of trips to the creek to refill my canteen and let them drink, then stood guard at a modest distance while they managed to make a joint latrine call. After Ubar’s initial reaction, I thought it best to let them do for each other rather than risk antagonizing or embarrassing either. After that, they both ate some more. Utai, especially, seemed starved; she’d gone a lot longer without eating. Afterward, they both seemed stronger.
Since Utai was sleepy again, Ubar and I continued with language lessons. I bit down on my dislike for mind-affecting things; I deliberately touched his mind with tendrils, lightly, listening as he spoke. I was very careful not to do anything to it—this was more on the order of getting an X-ray instead of doing surgery. It wasn’t “all right,” but the slow way we were progressing frustrated the hell out of me. Touching and listening—that made things much easier; no more guessing. Or, at least, much more confident guesses. We made a lot of progress. My vocabulary was growing like a weed near a manure pile.
Ubar gradually got tired. I let him sleep. I was busy letting language wander around in my head, trying to think in it.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3RD
It’s been another couple days of recuperation and language lessons; both have progressed nicely!
Both Utai and Ubar are up and about; Utai is much better off. Ubar still has a nasty scar on his chest and some muscle damage—he can’t bring his left arm in toward his chest with any force, but I have hopes it will get better. His face is no longer bandaged, but he will have that scar for the rest of his life, as well as a nose nobody will ever call pretty. Utai has scars hidden in her hair and no other injuries. I guess the soldiers didn’t really want to hack a pretty lady to pieces.
Between the two of them, we’ve managed to get my vocabulary to somewhat over two thousand words.
I would have said it was impossible. I have no talent for languages. I know enough German to get into trouble, enough French to swear effectively, and enough Latin to sound impressive, but that’s about it. But I’d never consumed someone who spoke any of those languages as a native language. I wonder if someone who spoke several languages would have the same effect on all of them, or if the native tongue would be stronger? Not an experiment I want to try, as such, but something to note.
Ubar and Utai were impressed at my facility with Rethven, to say the least.
“You learn our language as though you had but forgotten it,” Ubar said, once.
“It feels that way,” I replied. “It seems as though I should know it. Like I can almost remember the words I want to say.”
Unfortunately, with increased facility and fluency came questions. About myself, and about their gata, or extended family.
“I didn’t see what happened to them,” I admitted. “What do you recall?”
Utai shook her head. “Horsemen rode up after we encamped and started killing; I was struck and fell.”
Ubar nodded. “I saw her fall. These were soldiers of the Hand of Light. They called us consorts of darkness and allies to evil as they killed us. I do not know why.”
I sighed. “I can’t tell you either. I know there was some sort of excitement back in that city—what’s it called?”
“Telen.”
“Telen, yes. Thank you. There were alarms and shouting all that night before. Might that have had something to do with it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Nor I,” Utai added.
I shrugged. “Whatever the case, when I came on the scene they were firing the last of the wagons and mounting up in a hurry. The sun had just gone down and they were heading back toward Telen as fast as their horses could go.”
Ubar shook his head. “It makes no sense.”
Utai looked thoughtful. “Perhaps it does.”
We both looked at her. “Oh?” Ubar asked.
“Do you recall Ulegba’s stories about the na’irethed?”
The word na’irethed wasn’t familiar; we hadn’t covered it in my language lessons.
“Of course,” he said. “Everyone knows children’s stories.”
“She once told me the stories were true—there used to be na’irethed, and they ruled the world before the Hand of Light hunted them.”
Ah. Vampires, obviously. The assassin had called me a marivel; I guess I need to review more insults with Ubar and find out what it means.
“She would,” he said, disdainfully. “She loved to tell stories.”
Utai slapped him across the chest, not hard, but he winced.
“She insisted this was true! She told me there had been na’irethed who were kind, as well as marivel—” Well, so much for my idea that it was just an insult. More than one kind of vampire, maybe?—“and that our gata had been allied with one of the na’irethed. He cared for us and helped us, and we helped him and hid him from the dawn. But the Hand of Light did not care. They slew all the marivel and na’irethed together.”
“Right, right, right,” he said, rubbing his chest. “So?”
“So, the stories say the na’irethed fled from the Hand of Light. They went through a door of shadows through which the light could not follow. Maybe one of them came back through the door.”
I felt something like a centipede go running down my spine. It couldn’t have been a centipede, of course; any centipede that cold would shatter. If that was only a guess, I was going to get paranoid very quickly.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t that far out; she obviously spent a lot of time listening to stories from this Ulegba. And here I was, a stranger in odd clothes, bearing strange devices. For all I knew, touching her brainstem with my tendrils had given her some unconscious clue as to what I was and where I was from. I just didn’t know enough about it.
Someday, I promised myself, I’m going to sit down and figure me out. Now I know why the former me spent so much time and effort on studying vampires!
“Maybe,” Ubar said. “And what if one did? So what? Do you think it will be the one we were ‘allies’ with?” he asked, sounding scornful. “Or is it more likely that the Hand is starting up another one of its purges?”
Utai looked so disappointed. “A purge, yes. That’s much more likely.”
“So,” I broke in, “if there is a purge going on, what exactly does that entail?” Could be a bad time to be even a mundane stranger, much less a bloodsucking fiend of the night.
“The Hand will kill heretics, blasphemers, and unbelievers,” Ubar replied, “or, at least, those who do not shout their faith loudly enough. People who are known to be less than faithful will find their land and property seized by the Church of the Light and themselves either killed outright or purified by pain. This will continue until the Hand is satisfied that ‘evil and corruption’ have been destroyed.” He sounded disgusted.
“What is the difference between the Hand and the Church?”
“The Church is the main organization. The Hand is part of it.”
“So what is the Hand supposed to do?”
Utai spat, “It does all that. It is supposed to hunt down evil and corruption and destroy it, root and branch,” she said, and her voice broke. I looked at her and she looked away. She rose, still facing away from us both, and walked away.
I looked at Ubar. “What?”
He shook his head. “Let her go. She is a strong woman and will not shed tears where a stranger may see them. It is not done.”
I blinked at him. “A stranger?”
He hesitated, thinking, then said, “You are not part of our gata.”
I nodded. “And?”
“You are a stranger.”
We took a linguistic distraction for what it was worth. The word I had thought was “stranger”—tilar—was closer to the Japanese “gaijin.” It meant “outsider” more than anything else, although there was also an implied “barbarian,” or “uncivilized person.” “Stranger,” merely a person one does not know, was timat.
“So I am not a member of your gata. I see. And that’s why she cannot cry
in front of me?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. I can understand the tilar/timat difference, but why is it a woman cannot weep in front of someone not part of her gata?”
“It is not done.”
I suppose every culture has customs that seem odd to outsiders. Kissing a woman’s hand would be perfectly acceptable in an English ballroom; doing so in Baghdad could get you killed
“All right. I’ll take extra time tonight, when I’m hunting. You two can talk and she can cry on you if she needs to. Tomorrow I’d like to go back to the place and look over the remains. You two can start thinking about what you want to do.”
Ubar nodded. “I would like to see what is left.”
“Then we’ll get an early start tomorrow—just after dawn.”
“Good.”
I spent a goodly portion of the rest of the day discussing politics—and avoiding questions about how Ubar and Utai and their gata fit into everything. Ubar isn’t exactly a political theorist, but since when does the average man on the street know the details of how his government works? He gave me the gist of it.
The country I’m in is, technically, a feudal monarchy complete with lesser nobles, knights, guilds, peasants, serfs, and slaves. His Majesty has a few problems with absolutism. First, there was a Court of Nobles. Second, there’s the Church. Third—and increasingly—there are the wizards.
This is the gist of it.
The Court of Nobles functions a lot like a Senate, I think; they can overturn a decree of the sovereign by a two-thirds majority. They could also pass a law with or without the Royal Seal of Approval by the same margin. The King presides over the Court of Nobles and runs the day-to-day affairs of the kingdom, commands in war, and so forth.
The Church is not part of the government; it is, however, highly influential. As a whole, it commands a lot of popular support. Getting into a good afterlife is generally high on people’s lists of Things To Do. The idea of eternal damnation was never popular. The Church is also rich. Really rich. So rich it needs big, solid, stone castles to keep people from thinking about it too hard. Apparently a few centuries of steady tithing does wonders.
The wizards were becoming more of an influence in the last decade or so because they were becoming more unified. The local society was already using a guild system; the wizards, instead of being independents, were starting to realize how useful it could be to have other wizards to help out with some projects, share information, trade spells, and the like. Magic was becoming more commonplace and more necessary to society.
Ubar used two words for wizards, both hetu and hetaru. In context, it seemed that the hetu weren’t sticking together, while the hetaru were wizards trying to form a union. I also gathered that everyone believed in magic in a very matter-of-fact way. They believed in magic the same way people in my world believe in electricity.
Not that all of this helped as such, but I felt more comfortable knowing what might or might not blend in, as well as what to expect.
“So where do you fit in?” I asked. Ubar smiled widely and gestured broadly, without even a wince.
“We fit wheresoever we wish. We are gata, and we go wherever we will. There are no borders to us, for we live within the whole world.”
“No borders?” I asked.
“Well, there are often persons who would presume to manufacture one and so trouble us, but we try to humor them.”
“Oh,” said I, and I asked more questions.
The gata were a combination of circus, tinkers, traders, and witches. They provided entertainment in small towns and villages, provided minor services—repairing pots and tools, shoeing horses, and other things a village blacksmith might do if the village had one, and if he had the time—and traded various things, such as cloth, garments, and jewelry. Traveling wizards were the main source of magic for smaller towns and villages, but the gata did some fortune-telling, minor charms for continued health or for conceiving children—subtle things. They often performed music or small plays. Utai was a dancer and the whole gata had worked to keep her looking her best; she was a major source of income. Ubar was a musician, one of the three that played while she danced. They both had other functions within the gata, but I gathered those were their main occupations.
I considered this to be fortunate; since my two strays had some experience outside the normal lines of the system they should be invaluable in keeping me from getting colored in as a dark thing of evil.
Of course, most people would agree I am a dark thing of evil, but I don’t see it that way.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4TH
I took a lot longer in hunting for something to eat; I wanted to preview the remains of the gata. During the day, Utai had been combing the woods for edibles, I provided meat, and Ubar continued to recuperate. His injuries were the more grossly severe of the two, although Utai’s would have been the most difficult to treat by normal means. Go me!
While out hunting, I went back to the wagons for a bit. The remains were cold and there was nothing really left. Passerby had obviously scrounged whatever hadn’t burned, but it looked like the fires had destroyed nearly everything.
I doubted that Utai would take it well. Ubar wouldn’t be too pleased, either.
Farther down the road—away from Telen—I saw thin pillars of smoke in the still air, as of many small fires. The sky looks quite odd to vision that cannot see darkness; I don’t know how to describe it. It isn’t black, but rather nothing-colored. Regardless, things in the night sky do tend to stand out.
Sword in hand, I headed down the road to investigate.
A largish space had been cleared to either side of the road; a dozen tents were up on each side. Soldiers stood guard or patrolled the perimeter of the camp. I knew they were soldiers; they wore brigandine armor and carried swords. Peasant militia would not be so well-equipped. At least, I don’t think they would.
I couldn’t tell if they were coming from or going to town. Or, for that matter, what they were here for. But what bothered me was the sense of a priest. In the largest tent I could sense him—or them. It was like seeing the glow of a fire through the cloth; it shone through.
A small army sponsored by the church? Why? Looking for me, perhaps?
No answer.
However, traveling might prove more difficult if the roads were being patrolled or guarded. We could hardly admit we were gata who had been assaulted by Church troops. Some other cover story would be needed.
I faded back into the woods, found some squirrels—it was simple; I could smell them, enspell gravity down a bit, leap lightly and silently up into the tree, snatch, and move on—and returned to my campsite.
Ubar and Utai were talking. I didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but my hearing is appallingly acute at night.
“I think he is a dark wizard.”
Ubar agreed with, “Perhaps he is; but he has been kind to us.”
“True enough. We owe him our lives. We cannot betray him.”
“But you do not wish to aid him.”
“No. There is that about him that makes me wish we had died rather than be indebted.”
“Such as?”
Utai hesitated and so did I. I moved to a place where I could see them.
“He is not all of this world. Something about his garb, his weapons, his gear… and his self. He does not sleep that I have seen. And have you ever heard such a barbarous tongue?”
“No. Not even from the savages beyond the Eastrange.”
“There is that which makes me think he is not entirely human.”
“Fae-kin, perhaps?”
Utai shook her head, dark hair falling in waves about her face.
“No. Or not of the fairer kind. I have a touch of the sight from my own fae blood. His is something darker.”
Ubar stroked his chin; he had a short growth of beard since he had not asked to borrow anything with which to shave.
“Demonic?”
“I do not know. I do not think so, but I
do not know.”
“Then what would you have us do? Simply leave him?”
“Yes,” she replied, definitely.
“Now?’ Ubar sounded startled.
She shook her head reluctantly. “No… not immediately. Perhaps in a day or two, when we have reached another town. Bildar was to be our next stop?”
“Yes, it was. And may yet be. Why leave him then?”
“He can make his own way, as can we. He saved our lives; we taught him language. We will also show him to a town and see him established as a traveler who wishes to rest. Then we can leave in good conscience.”
I chuckled to myself. Lost kittens, indeed! They were worried about their obligation to me.
“Fairly spoken. It shall be as you say, sister.”
Sister? I wondered. Perhaps it was literal, but possibly it was a usage common to anyone within a gata. I started crunching through leaves, heading toward the camp. Ubar lay back and Utai poked up the fire.
“Evening, all.” I presented Utai with the squirrels; she started skinning them and dressing them out. Her knife wasn’t sharp enough to shave with, but her skill with it far exceeded mine. “So, ready to take off in the morning?”
“Yes, of course,” Utai replied, smiling at me. I silently complimented her on the ability to smile charmingly at someone while plotting behind his back.
Utai paled, but her smile never faltered.
I smiled back. Somehow, I knew she caught that rogue thought. Maybe she was just sensitive—that Sight she had mentioned—or maybe I wanted her to know and had projected. Whatever the case, she knew, and I knew she knew.