Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Then, muffled by the fog, came the sound of blade on blade; unmistakable if heard once. And Kethry had heard that peculiar shing more times than she cared to think.

  Kethry had lain down fully-clothed against the damp; now she sprang to her feet, seizing her blade as she rose. Barefooted, she followed the sound through the echoing trunks, doing her own best to make no sound.

  For why, if this had been an attack, had Tarma not awakened her? An ambush then? But why hadn't Tarma called out to her? Why wasn't she calling for help now? What of the Hawkbrothers that were supposed to be watching out for them?

  She slipped around tree trunks, the thick carpet of needles soft beneath her feet, following the noise of metal scissoring and clashing. Away from the little cup where they had camped the fog began to wisp and rise, winding around the trunks in woolly festoons, though still thick as a storm cloud an arm's length above her head. The sounds of blades came clearer now, and she began using the tree trunks to hide behind as she crept up upon the scene of conflict.

  She rounded yet another tree, and shrank again behind it; the fog had deceived her, and she had almost stumbled into the midst of combat.

  The fog ringed this place, moving as if alive, a thick tendril of it winding out, now and again, to interpose itself between Tarma and her foe. It glowed—it glowed with more than the predawn light. To mage-sight it glowed with power, power bright and pure, power strong, true, and—strange. It was out of her experience—and it barred her from the charmed circle where the combatants fenced.

  Tarma's eyes were bright with utter concentration, her face expressionless as a sheet of polished marble. Kethry had never seen her quite like this, except when in the half-trance she induced when practicing or meditating. She was using both sword and dagger to defend herself—

  Against another Shin'a'in.

  This man was unmistakably of Tarma's race. The tawny gold skin of hands and what little Kethry could see of his face showed his kinship to her. So did the strands of raven hair that had been bound out of his face by an equally black headband, and ice-blue eyes that glinted above his veil.

  For he was veiled; this was something Tarma never had worn for as long as Kethry had known her. Kethry hadn't even known till this moment that a veil could be part of a Shin'a'in costume, but the man's face was obscured by one, and it did not have the feeling of a makeshift. He was veiled and garbed entirely in black, the black Tarma had worn when on the trail of those who had slaughtered her Clan. Black was for blood-feud—but Tarma had sworn that there was never blood-feud between Shin'a'in and Shin'a'in. And black was for Kal'enedral—three times barred from internecine strife.

  There was less in their measured counter and riposte of battle than of dance. Kethry held her breath, transfixed by more than the power of the mist. She was caught by the deadly beauty of the weaving blades, caught and held entranced, drawn out of her hiding place to stand in the open.

  Tarma did not even notice she was there—but the other did.

  He stepped back, breaking the pattern, and motioned slightly with his left hand. Tarma instantly broke off her advance, and seemed to wake just as instantly from her trance, staring at Kethry with the startled eyes of a wild thing broken from hiding.

  The other turned, for his back had been to Kethry. He saluted the sorceress in slow, deliberate ceremony with his own blade. Then he winked slowly and gravely over his veil, and—vanished, taking the power in the magic fog with him.

  Released from her entrancement, Kethry stared at her partner, not certain whether to be frightened, angry or both.

  "What—was—that—" she managed at last.

  "My trainer; my guide," Tarma replied sheepishly. "One of them, anyway." She sheathed her sword and stood, to all appearances feeling awkward and at a curious loss for words. "I... never told you about them before, because I wasn't sure it was permitted. They train me every night we aren't within walls... one of them takes my watch to see you safe. I... I guess they decided I was taking too long to tell you about them; I suppose they figured it was time you knew about them."

  "You said your people didn't use magic—but he—he was alive with it! Only your Goddess—"

  "He's Hers. In life, he was Kal'enedral; and now—" she lifted up her hand, "—as you saw. His magic is Hers—"

  "What do you mean, 'in life'?" Kethry asked, an edge of hysteria in her voice.

  "You mean—you couldn't tell?"

  "Tell what?"

  "He's a spirit. He's been dead at least a hundred years, like all the rest of my teachers."

  It took Tarma the better part of an hour to calm her partner down.

  They broke out of the trees, as Tarma had promised, just past mid-afternoon.

  Kethry stared; Tarma sat easily in Kessira's saddle, and grinned happily. "Well?" she asked, finally.

  Kethry sought for words, and failed to find them.

  They had come out on the edge of a sheer drop-off; the mighty trees grew to the very edge of it, save for the narrow path on which they stood. Below them, furlongs, it seemed, lay the Dhorisha Plains.

  Kethry had pictured acres of grassland, a sea of green, as featureless as the sea itself, and as flat.

  Instead she saw beneath her a rolling country of gentle, swelling rises; like waves. Green grass there was in plenty—as many shades of green as Kethry had ever seen, and more—and golden grass, and a faint heathered purple. And flowers—it must have been flowers that splashed the green with irregular pools of bright blue and red, white and sunny yellow, orange and pink. Kethry took an experimental sniff and yes, the breeze rising up the cliff carried with it the commingled scents of growing grass and a hundred thousand spring blossoms.

  There were dark masses, like clouds come to earth, running in lines along the bottoms of some of the swells. After a long moment Kethry realized that they must be trees, far-off trees, lining the watercourses.

  "How—" she turned to Tarma with wonder in her eyes, "how could you ever bear to leave this?"

  "It wasn't easy, she'enedra," Tarma sighed, deep and abiding hunger stirring beneath the smooth surface of the mask she habitually wore. "Ah, but you're seeing it at its best. The Plains have their hard moments, and more of them than the soft. Winter—aye, that's the coldest face of all, with all you see out there sere and brown, and so barren all the life but the Clans and the herds sleeps beneath the surface in safe burrows. High summer is nearly as cruel, when the sun burns everything, when the watercourses shrink to tiny trickles, when you long for a handsbreadth of shade, and there is none to be found. But spring—oh, the Plains are lovely then, as lovely as She is when She is Maiden—and as welcoming."

  Tarma gazed out at the blowing grasslands with a faint smile beginning to touch her thin lips.

  "Ah, I swear I am as sentimental as an old granny with a mouthful of tales of how golden the world was when she was young," she laughed, finally, "and none of this gets us down to the Plains. Follow me, and keep Rodi exactly in Kessira's footsteps. It's a long way down from here if you slip."

  They followed a narrow trail along the face of the drop-off, a trail that switched back and forth constantly as it dropped, so that there was never more than a length or two from one level of the trail to the next below it. This was no bad idea, since it meant that if a mount and rider were to slide off the trail, they would have a fighting chance of saving themselves one or two levels down. But it made for a long ride, and all of it in the full sun, with nowhere to rest and no shade anywhere. Kethry and her mule were tired and sweat-streaked by the time they reached the bottom, and she could see that Tarma and Kessira were in no better shape.

  But there was immediate relief at the bottom of the cliff, in the form of a grove of alders and willows with a cool spring leaping out of the base of the escarpment right where the trail ended. They watered the animals first, then plunged their own heads and hands into the tinglingly cold water, washing themselves clean of the itch of sweat and dust.

  Tarma looked at the l
owering sun, slicking back wet hair. "Well," she said finally, "We have a choice. We can go on, or we can overnight here. Which would you rather?"

  "You want the truth? I'd rather overnight here. I'm tired, and I ache; I'd like the chance to rinse all of me off. But I know how anxious you are to get back to your people."

  "Some," Tarma admitted, "But... well, if we quit now, then made an early start of it in the morning, we wouldn't lose too much time."

  "I won't beg you, but—"

  "All right, I yield!" Tarma laughed, giving in to Kethry's pleading eyes.

  Camp was quickly made; Tarma went out with bow and arrow and returned with a young hare and a pair of grass-quail.

  "This—this is strange country," Kethry commented sleepily over the crackle of the fire. "These grasslands shouldn't be here, and I could swear that cliff wasn't cut by nature."

  "The gods alone know," Tarma replied, stirring the fire with a stick. "It's possible, though. My people determined long ago that the Plains are the bowl of a huge valley that is almost perfectly circular, even though it takes weeks to ride across the diameter of it. This is the only place where the rim is that steep, though. Everywhere else it's been eroded down, though you can still see the boundaries if you know what to look for."

  "Perfectly circular—that hardly seems possible."

  "You're a fine one to say 'hardly possible,'" Tarma teased. "Especially since you've just crossed through the lowest reaches of the Pelagir Hills."

  "I what?" Kethry sat bolt upright, no longer sleepy.

  "The forest we just passed through—didn't you know it was called the Pelgiris Forest? Didn't the name sound awfully familiar to you?"

  "I looked at it on the map—I guess I just never made the connection."

  "Well, keep going north long enough and you're in the Pelagirs. My people have a suspicion that the Tale'edras are Shin'a'in originally, Shin'a'in who went a bit too far north and got themselves changed. They've never said anything, though, so we keep our suspicions to ourselves."

  "The Pelagirs..." Kethry mused.

  "And just what are you thinking of? You surely don't want to go in there, do you?"

  "Maybe."

  "Warrior's Oath! Are you mad? Do you know the kind of things that live up there? Griffins, firebirds, colddrakes—things without names 'cause no one who's seen 'em has lived long enough to give them any name besides 'AAAARG!'"

  Kethry had to laugh at that. "Oh, I know," she replied, "Better than you. But I also know how to keep us relatively safe in there—"

  "What do you mean, 'us'?"

  "—because one of my order came from the heart of the Pelagirs. The wizard Gervase."

  "Gervase?" Tarma's jaw dropped. "The Lizard Wizard? You mean that silly song about the Wizard Lizard is true?"

  "Truer than many that are taken for pure fact. Gervase was a White Winds adept, because the mage that gifted him was White Winds—and it was a good day for the order when he made that gift. Gervase, being a reptile, and being a Pelagir changeling as well, lived three times the span of a normal sorcerer, and we are notoriously long-lived. He became the High Adept of the order, and managed to guide it into the place it holds today."

  "Total obscurity," Tarma taunted.

  "Oh, no—protective obscurity. Those who need us know how to find us. Those we'd rather couldn't find us can't believe anyone who holds the power a White Winds Adept holds would ever be found ankle-deep in mud and manure, tending his own onions. Let other mages waste their time in politics and sorcerer's duels for the sake of proving that one of them is better—or at least more devious—than the other. We save our resources for those who are in need of them. There's this, too—we can sleep sound of nights, knowing nobody is likely to conjure an adder into one of our sleeping rolls."

  "Always provided he could ever find the place where you've laid that sleeping roll," Tarma laughed. "All right, you've convinced me."

  "When we find your people—"

  "Hmm?"

  "Well, then what?"

  "I'll have to go before a Council of the Elders of three Clans, and present myself. They'll give me back the Clan banner, and—" Tarma stopped, nonplussed.

  "And—" Kethry prompted.

  "I don't know; I hadn't thought about it. Liha'irden has been taking care of the herds; they'll get first choice of yearlings for their help. But—I don't know, she'enedra; the herds of an entire Clan are an awful lot for just two women to tend. My teacher told me I should turn mercenary... and I'm not sure now that he meant it to be temporary."

  "That is how we've been living."

  "I suppose we could let Liha'irden continue as caretakers, at least until we're ready to settle down, but—I don't want to leave yet."

  "I don't blame you," Kethry teased, "After all, you just got here!"

  "Well, look—if we're going to really try and become mercenaries, and not just play at it to get enough money to live on, we're both going to have to get battlesteeds—and you are going to have to learn how to manage one."

  Kethry paled. "A battlesteed?" she faltered. "Me? I've never ridden anything livelier than a pony!"

  "I don't want you at my side in a fight on anything less than a Shin'a'in-bred and trained battlesteed," Tarma said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  Kethry swallowed, and bit her lip a little.

  Tarma grinned suddenly. "Don't go lathering yourself, she'enedra, we may decide to stay here, after all, and you can confine yourself to ponies and mules or your own two feet if that's what you want."

  "That prospect," Kethry replied, "sounds more attractive every time you mention battlesteeds!"

  Kethry had no idea how she did it, but Tarma led them straight into the Liha'irden camp without a single false turning.

  "Practice," she shrugged, when Kethry finally asked, "I know it looks all the same to you, but I know every copse and spring and hill of this end of the Plains. The Clans are nomadic, but we each have territories; Liha'irden's was next to Tale'sedrin's. I expected with two Clans' worth of herds they would be camped by one of the springs that divided the two, and pasturing in both territories. When the Hawkbrother told me which spring, I knew I was right."

  Tarma in her costume of Kal'enedral created quite a stir—but Kethry was a wonder, especially to the children. When they first approached the camp, Tarma signaled a sentry who had then ridden in ahead of them. As they got nearer, more and more adolescents and older children came out on their saddlebeasts, forming a polite but intensely curious escort. When they entered the camp itself, the youngest came running out to see the visitors, voluble and quite audible in their surprise at the sight of Kethry.

  "She has grass-eyes!"

  "And sunset-hair!"

  "Mata, how come she's riding a mule? She doesn't look old or sick!"

  "Is she Sworn, too? Then why is she wearing dust-colors?" That from a tiny girl in blazing scarlet and bright blue.

  "Is she staying?"

  "Is she outClan?"

  "Is she from the magic place?"

  Tarma swung down off Kessira and took in the mob of children with a mock-stern expression. "What is this clamor? Is this the behavior of Shin'a'in?"

  The babble cut off abruptly, the children keeping complete silence.

  "Better. Who will take my mare and my she'enedra's mule?"

  One of the adolescents handed his reins to a friend and presented himself. "I will, Sworn One."

  "My thanks," she said, giving him a slight bow. He returned a deeper bow, and took both animals as soon as Kethry had dismounted.

  "Now, will someone bring us to the Elders?"

  "No need," said a strong, vigorous voice from the rear of the crowd. "The Elders are here."

  The gathering parted immediately to allow a collection of four Shin'a'in through. One was a woman of middle years, with a square (for a Shin'a'in) face, gray-threaded hair, and a look of determination about her. She wore bright harvest-gold breeches, soft, knee-high, fringed leather boots, a cream-col
ored shirt with embroidered sleeves, and a scarlet-and-black embroidered vest that laced closed in the front. By the headdress of two tiny antelope horns she wore, Kethry knew she was the Shaman of Liha'irden.

  The second was a very old man, his face wrinkled so that his eyes twinkled from out of the depths of deep seams, his hair pure white. He wore blue felt boots, embroidered in green; dark blue breeches, a lighter blue shirt, and a bright green vest embroidered with a pattern to match the boots, but in blue. The purely ornamental riding crop he wore at his belt meant he was the Clan Chief. He was far from being feeble; he walked fully erect with never a hint of a limp or a stoop, and though his steps were slow, they were firm.

  Third was a woman whose age lay somewhere between the Clan Chief and the Shaman. She wore scarlet; nothing but shades of red. That alone told Kethry that this was the woman in whose charge lay both the duties of warleader and of instructing the young in the use of arms.

  Last was a young man in muted greens, who smiled widely on seeing Tarma. Kethry knew this one from Tarma's descriptions; he was Liha'irden's Healer and the fourth Elder.

  "Either news travels on the wings of the birds, or you've had scouts out I didn't see," Tarma said, giving them the greeting of respect.

  "In part, it did travel with birds. The Hawkbrothers told us of your return," the Healer said. "They gave us time enough to bring together a Council."

  The crowd parted a second time to let five more people through, all elderly. Tarma raised one eyebrow in surprise.

  "I had not expected to be met by a full Council," she said, cautiously. "And I find myself wondering if this is honor, or something else."

  "Kal'enedra, I wish you to know that this was nothing of my doing," the Clan Chief of Liha'irden replied, his voice heavy with disapproval. "Nor will my vote be cast against you."

  "Cast against me? Me? For why?" Tarma flushed, then blanched.

  "Tale'sedrin is a dead Clan," one of the other five answered her, an old woman with a stubborn set to her mouth. "It only lacks a Council's pronouncement to make history what is already fact."