A bucolic scene, and a welcoming one. The air was rich with the scent of sun-warmed grain and roasting meat. His ox, the truthseer concluded, spotting the pit near the smith’s house, and licked his lips.
All at once, a horse and rider pounded through the herd, sending heads tossing and two more escapees into the gardens. The man—Roche—pulled his horse to a furious halt by the fountain, then jumped down, tossing the reins over his mount’s head.
More Bannan didn’t see, for an irresistible grip pulled him, not gently, around the side of the Morrills’ house. “Get weapons!” Wyll commanded, eyes flaring silver. He released his hold with a hard shove and the truthseer staggered. “Go!”
“Heart’s Blood!” Bannan made sure his bundle was safe, then rubbed his arm, another bruise for his collection. “It’s just Roche—”
“Find weapons!” A breeze shoved him back another step. “’Rouse the village!”
“Why?” Bannan’s heart started to pound. “What’s wrong?!”
“Go!” Infuriated breezes tore leaves and slammed clots of soil against the log wall. “Defend Marrowdell!”
He flinched and shielded his eyes. “All right! I’ll get Tir.” And his axes. “We’ll scout—” For what? Ancestors Reliable and Trusted, he’d better have more than a dragon’s tantrum before alarming the villagers. “What—”
“The bold suitors return!” An amused breath of air found his ear. Scourge wasn’t in sight, which only meant he chose not to be seen. “Is your plan to hide and write more letters?”
“Useless old fool!” Wyll snarled and a vicious little wind whistled across the road, startling birds from the apple trees on the far side. Crack! A branch came loose and fell.
Scourge shied into view from behind a trunk surely too narrow to have hidden so much as his nose.
And charged.
“Heart’s Blood!” The oath came at the same instant as a frantic thud of hooves—doubtless, Bannan thought numbly, Roche’s horse running for its life—and an equally frantic scramble of footsteps as his former rider tore around the building, almost crashing into them.
While Scourge thundered across the road.
“Stay here. He’s not mad at us,” Bannan assured Roche.
It wasn’t as though running would help.
“Useless,” Wyll reiterated, standing his ground as the men put their backs to the wall.
Scourge plunged to a snorting halt, close enough to spray them all with dirt but not, thankfully, any closer. Bannan realized he’d been right to think his old friend something quite different from the kruar pulling the tinkers’ wagons. It wasn’t size, though Scourge was a third again larger.
It was the pure, unadulterated threat rippling from those curled-back lips to that upraised tail.
Roche whimpered. “Ancestors save me! He’s going to kill us.”
“That—” Wyll snapped the fingers of his good hand under Scourge’s drooling fangs, “—for your help. You let them in, you great cow!!”
Bannan put his bundle against the log wall and took a step. “Let who in?” He might not have existed. The dragon and kruar continued to glower at one another. “Who?!” he demanded.
A low voice answered, “Ansnans.”
Bannan spun on his heel to stare at Roche, hearing the truth, unwilling to believe it. “This is no time for jokes.” Or nightmares.
The man was sickly pale but didn’t back down. “I’m telling the truth. I can’t help it,” he added desperately. “Jenn told me to and now I can’t stop!”
The truth. The moment in the commons. Sand and her fellow turn-born had been amused. Because Jenn Nalynn, however innocent, had enacted a just revenge?
“I hate it here,” Roche went on. “The horrid dreams. The way everyone’s so happy with their stupid little lives. I’ll stay for the harvest to impress my family and be sure you don’t look better than me, even if you are—” He gulped for air.
It was like watching someone topple from a cliff, Bannan decided. Dreadful, but you couldn’t look away. Roche had best change his habits, or he’d condemn himself every time he opened his mouth.
“—and to see for myself if Jenn Nalynn marries this cripple when she could have had a real man, like me!”
Like that.
Bannan raised a hand to stop the flood, with a wary glance at the dragon, who still matched glares with Scourge. “I believe you.” Ancestors Crazed and Confounded. The truth it was.
And Ansnans. Here. “Why would Ansnans come to Marrowdell?” he demanded, though sure of the answer. They’d come in search of Captain Ash. His entire body felt hard and heavy, the way it had before battle. Why had he abandoned his weapons?
A bee droned past. A moth perched lightly on the roof edge as birds sang. Voices rang out in the distance, cheerful and busy voices.
“Why does not matter!” The breeze stank of old meat and scalded Bannan’s neck. “We find Tir!” A hoof slammed into the ground. “We kill them all! Squash them flat. Rip their flesh! Lick their blood as it pours out!!!”
Scourge was sharing; Roche turned green.
The eager violence was familiar, though having it put into words made Bannan grateful his mount had been mute all those years on the marches.
Violence that didn’t belong here. That he’d chosen not to bring with him. Ancestors Desperate and Dire, he’d come here for peace. Where could it begin, if not with him?
So the truthseer said, almost calmly, “There’s a truce.”
The breeze sank to a fetid mutter. Wyll turned his head to stare at Bannan, silver glinting in his eyes. “Your truce matters not to me. These strangers are a threat!”
A threat, when the dragon didn’t care about him or his past. “Wait. Roche,” Bannan said, then sharper, “Roche!” when the younger man wouldn’t stop staring at Scourge. With a start, he shifted his eyes to the truthseer. “Answer me,” Bannan ordered. “Why have the Ansnans come to Marrowdell?”
“F— for the eclipse.”
“The—” The truthseer closed his mouth, chilled to the bone. Sand had accused him. She’d known the danger. What had Wyll said about the men who’d come before, who’d built the now-ruined towers? That they’d been the spark to set two worlds ablaze.
Making the Ansnans a threat to this wondrous place.
To Jenn Nalynn.
Shaken, he turned to the dragon. “They’re only men—”
“This is the Great Turn,” Wyll said, cold and harsh. His silvered eyes were too hot to meet. “They think to meddle once more. They shall not!”
Scourge’s head lifted, lips back over his fangs. “They must die,” he agreed.
There was another way. There had to be. “Wait,” Bannan heard himself said once more.
The dragon and the kruar looked at him.
“I can learn the truth,” he offered grimly. “Let me talk to them first.”
Captain Ash he would be again. For her sake.
Jenn and Peggs sat very quietly on the gate, so quietly that with any luck at all, no one of the group approaching from the village would notice and send them from what boded to be the most entertaining event in Marrowdell’s history.
The strange train of wagons had halted some distance from the gate. It was that, or run over the house toad.
The toad, having leapt into the oxen’s path, now squatted there like a large warty rock, refusing to budge even when the red-robed man shook his bell at it. In response, the toad merely puffed up and glared its indignation.
The man, nonplussed, tried to steer the oxen around the toad, but they, as if aware this was no ordinary toad, also refused to budge.
Curtains fluttered as the wagons’ occupants noticed the delay.
“Who do you think’s inside?” Jenn whispered eagerly.
Peggs leaned her head close. “No one from Endshere.”
The sisters nodded wisely.
The front curtain on the lead wagon pulled aside and a head popped out. It was that of an older woman, though her scalp w
as bare. She shouted at the man in a language Jenn hadn’t heard before, her meaning plain. He pointed his bell at the toad and shrugged.
“Welcome—” Jenn began.
The woman flung a gray scarf over her head and disappeared behind the curtain.
“You frightened her.”
“Did not. What’s Wainn doing?”
He’d stepped up to the side of the last, largest wagon. Now he rapped smartly on its wood.
That curtain drew aside, slowly. The youngest Uhthoff bowed a greeting and said something.
Which they couldn’t possibly hear from this distance. Jenn hopped down at once, pausing to straighten her ribbons.
“What do you—Jenn, wait!” her sister urged, with a worried look toward the village. Master Dusom and Uncle Horst were in the lead, their father and Tir close behind. As, it appeared, was everyone else.
Wait. Everything was about waiting, these days. About behaving and waiting while others did things. Jenn shook her head in mute rebellion.
Abandoning Peggs, she walked as quickly as seemed proper. She dipped a half curtsy at the toad, nodded graciously to the robed man, and admired the giant oxen without getting too close. But her attention was all for Wainn and whomever he addressed.
So she jumped with a highly improper squeak when the curtains on the middle wagon were flung open and a smiling face peered out at her. “Fair, fair day, young lady!” boomed the owner of the face. “Have we reached the refuge at last? Is this the home of the mighty Celestial? We’re in time, I trust?”
Jenn gave herself a little shake, then said as properly as Aunt Sybb could ask, though she struggled a bit to understand what he said, since he spoke with great enthusiasm and his vowels were either too long or too short, making even the normal words odd, “You’ve reached Marrowdell, good sir. My name is Jenn Nalynn.”
“Gaienn Nalynn.”
“Jenn,” she corrected, though it wasn’t polite to argue.
“Jeainn! Jenn! I have it. A splendid name. Jenn. Wait there, Jenn. Please. Right there. Don’t go away.” The curtain slid back in place, then the entire wagon shook as the stranger bustled around inside, clearly planning to come out.
Ancestors Witness. She hadn’t planned to greet the newcomers herself, nor, she was sure, would their father be happy about it. At least what she’d seen of the man was pleasant and friendly: older, bald-headed, with big bushy eyebrows and brown eyes that crinkled cheerfully at the corners.
Wainn shook his head at her.
She pretended not to notice.
A door burst open at the back of the wagon, beside the tongue linking it to the next. Stairs neatly unfolded to the road, supported by chains, then the stranger stepped out, one hand holding the doorframe, the other keeping his hem from tangling his feet.
He wore a hat and red robe, like the man with the oxen, but his robe was much richer, with a panel of bright yellow from throat to hem and matching bars on the sleeves from shoulder to wrist. The material was finely pleated, with even the sleeves a mass of delicate, measured folds. Ironing the thing would take hours, she thought.
A resplendent, lordly figure who hopped past the lowest step and rushed to meet her with hands outstretched. “Hello and greetings, Jenn of Marrowdell!”
She took his hands—how could she not?—and managed a shy smile. “Hello.”
“Dema Qimirpik. Were we not to greet the locals together?” A second man came from behind the last wagon. He nodded graciously to Wainn, but didn’t pause, coming toward Jenn instead.
Who, about to be outnumbered by strangers, wished herself a little less bold. Nothing for it but to keep smiling, especially since her hands remained trapped in the soft, slightly moist grip of Dema Qimirpik. A name she’d need to practice.
“I saw her first, Urcet,” claimed her captor, squeezing her hands gently.
Jenn blushed. To make matters worse, while Dema Qimirpik, though dressed like a woman, seemed a fatherly, friendly figure, the approaching Urcet was, well, he wasn’t.
He wore tan trousers, topped by a short brown coat, belted and with pockets at chest and waist, over a creamy shirt with a collar open at the throat. A narrow black sash crossed from his left shoulder to his right hip, ending in a tassel tied with small, muted red bells, and a series of leather pouches hung from his belt. His shoes were polished to gleaming reflections and his hair, for his head wasn’t shaved, curled tight to his scalp, black save for a round white patch above each ear. All of which being details Jenn noticed later.
He was the most beautiful man in the world. He had to be.
The skin sliding over smooth muscle and noble bone was as black as the oxen’s hide. A gold bead gleamed from the one side of his broad nostrils and his bold dark eyes, large and slanted, had lids painted with gold. Generous perfect lips parted over shockingly white teeth as he began to smile at her, and his smile?
Jenn felt warm to her toes.
Fortunately, Peggs appeared at her shoulder as she stood staring. “Hello. I’m Peggs Nalynn.”
The youngest Uhthoff followed behind, his face unusually troubled. “I’m Wainn Uhthoff. Why are you here?”
Releasing Jenn’s hands, Dema Qimirpik smiled at Peggs and took her hands, in what Jenn now realized was his peculiar greeting ritual. “Urcet,” he proclaimed, “we’ve come to a land of rapturous beauty. My heart may not survive it.”
“Before you expire, my good dema,” Urcet suggested dryly, his warm voice deeper than Davi Treff’s, “you could introduce me. As head of our little expedition.”
“Of course. Ladies—and you, young sir,” this as Dema Qimirpik nodded to Wainn, “—it is my honor to present Urcet a Hac Sa Od y Dom, my esteemed colleague and fellow adventurer. We’re here on a quest.”
“You are not Rhothan,” Wainn said bluntly.
Not Rhothan? Jenn’s eyes widened.
“Indeed, we are not,” Urcet agreed. He touched the fingertips of his right hand to the base of his throat and inclined his head. “I am Eld. My companion and our servants are Ansnan. We accept that here we are—” he paused delicately, “—something of a novelty.”
Novelty? From what Master Dusom and Aunt Sybb said, no one from Eldad ventured outside of Avyo, though perhaps that would change once they built their train.
As for Ansnor? Jenn’s mouth went dry. The war was over, yes, but to judge by Bannan—
“I don’t believe it!” A smiling Master Dusom pushed past Jenn and her sister. “Is that you, Qimirpik?”
“As you must be Dusom. We meet in the flesh at last.”
The two clasped hands with every appearance of joy. “How did you—where did you—It doesn’t matter.” She hadn’t known Master Dusom could babble. “You made it, Qimirpik! You’re in time for the eclipse!”
“And in good company,” the dema said, indicating Urcet. “My esteemed colleague from Eldad, Urcet a Hac Sa Od y Dom.”
“Scholar Dusom.” Urcet nodded graciously and Master Dusom bowed. From the looks on everyone else’s face, their scholar had some explaining to do.
Wainn said no one in Marrowdell could help her, but he couldn’t have known of the timely arrival of the dema. Heart alight with hope, Jenn eased back through the half-circle of villagers. These were scholars and friends of Master Dusom; being from other domains, they might know magic. It was certainly possible, she told herself, determined to make a good impression. So, while the rest exchanged greetings, Jenn went to where the Ansnan servant stood beside his team, staring in helpless frustration at the house toad.
“Fair morning,—” Did one say “good sir” to a servant? She’d never met one. Aunt Sybb hadn’t said much on the matter, come to think of it, save the always useful advice to offer courtesy regardless of station. Jenn bobbed half a curtsy, “—good sir.”
Up close, the servant’s red robe lacked pleats or bands of yellow and was stained from hem to knee. His broad-brimmed hat was the same as the dema’s, but he wore a scarf around his neck. His tanned face had wrinkles fol
ding its wrinkles, as if he’d been plump once, so it was difficult to know if he frowned. Jenn kept smiling hopefully.
He said some words she didn’t understand, then gestured with his bell, two fingers holding the clapper silent.
Was he pointing to the toad, the village, or shooing her away?
“I can help,” she offered.
More words, none of which seemed polite. A definite, “go away,” with the bell. He lifted his hand to the neck of the lead ox and gave it a morose little pat, as if to say, here we are, stuck in a wilderness with mad toads and stupid girls.
Well, this was frustrating. She wasn’t stupid. He’d had all his life to learn Ansnan. The least he could have done before making this journey was learn Rhothan, like his master. She tried not to scowl. How hard could it be?
The woman in the first wagon called out something. The man turned his head and replied, not as loudly.
Really, how hard . . . Words were meant to be understood, weren’t they? It wasn’t magic.
But, Jenn thought suddenly, could it be?
How was the bigger question. Wishing. Wanting. Shouting. None of those felt quite right, not that she knew what right was.
She should be able to understand anyone, shouldn’t she? If she put her mind to it, and really listened, of course she would. Why ever not? And be understood by anyone, if she spoke clearly, which she always tried to do, though sometimes she did speak too quickly for anyone but Peggs.
Trees tipped to listen. A butterfly paused as it sipped nectar, then fluttered away.
“—when the dema gives the word, Panilaq, and not an instant before.”
Jenn blinked. So did the toad.
The servant did speak Rhothan. So much for magic. As for why he hadn’t from the start? She shrugged. Other ways. They were from another domain, which of itself was a wonder and forgave all manner of strangeness. “I can move the house toad for you, good sir,” she told him.
“I am Kanajug, not ‘good sir.’” He shoved back his hat and leaned forward to peer at her. “You speak Ansnan.”
“I regret to say I don’t,” she replied, a little embarrassed. Perhaps her appearance was as strange to him, so he couldn’t tell she’d been here her entire life. Though in her defense, Jenn thought in her second-best dress she might pass for a well-educated and traveled lady. If she’d put on her shoes.
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