Steelflower

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “A mystery.” He used the particular term in G’mai for a riddle that had no answer. It was also the word for a fool’s riddle, the kind that was ridiculously simple once a fool told you the answer. I had to smile. His tone was light, but with a sharper edge, and I turned to look at him. His mouth was a straight line and his black eyes warm with something I had seen before on a man’s face.

  I swallowed dryly, lay my hand against a charred and shattered waggon-box. “Is there any cargo left?”

  He did not look away. “No. Whatever this caravan carried is gone now.”

  I closed my eyes, and tried to imagine.

  Why would a caravan come to the sands? No fishing, no hunting here. Had the caravan master seen wyvern traces and decided to be near the water despite the risk of sinking the waggons? It seemed unlikely that bandits had driven the caravan down onto the beach. So for some reason, the caravan had come here. Then the oxen were taken, and the wyverns happened later.

  No caravan would gladly lose all its waggons, though.

  When I opened my eyes, Darik's eyes were still on me. He watched

  “Let us return to the others. Unless you think it profitable to look further.” My tone was a little sharp.

  “Enjoyable, at least. There is profit in enjoyment,” he fired back. I had forgotten the richness of G’mai, the complex wordplay. He had just neatly outdueled me with words.

  I do not recall drawing this duel-circle. “There is also a tax on enjoyment in this part of the world. Tread carefully, princeling.”

  His eyebrows lifted a fraction. “I can think of no tax that should be levied on this enjoyment.” It was a formal pun-session now. He had challenged and I had answered. “The Sun, the sea and a pretty adai.”

  Clumsy, for one so adept. “Two out of three is good odds, at least,” I offered obliquely, running my hand along charred wood. Intense heat, for a short period of time. The board underneath was still fairly sound. Definitely wyvern fire. But why? They do not like people, staying as far as possible from civilization. Why would they seek out a caravan that stank of humankind? And where had the cargo gone? There were tracks, too blurred to be of any real use, unlike the wyvern trail.

  “I see no cloud in the sky.” But his intonation was just imprecise enough to imply he did see a cloud—trouble approaching—in the conversation.

  “Lightning does sometimes descend from the blue.” Twas an old line of poetry, so well worn it was almost cliché. Not my best effort, but twas only a warning.

  “Absolutely. Like a dauq’adai on a whitebark branch.”

  I had two choices, now. I could make another witty pun and embroil myself even deeper with a palace-trained master of wordplay, or I could be rude.

  I chose to do both.

  “Whitebark repels evil, I am told,” I said sweetly. “As does silver.”

  He nodded slowly, his hair falling forward over his forehead. “So does…steel.” The word he used was a pun for a sword—and a s’tarei. In particular, the more…ah, intimate aspects of a s’tarei.

  I decided to use the same term. “I have little known steel to repel evil.” I turned away to look toward the hill we’d come from. “Sometimes a bright blade can be wielded by a black heart.” I used the word that could be interpreted as his name, darikaan.

  “Take care how you use yours, then.” He followed me as I quartered the charred waggon, wrinkling my nose once or twice against the smoke.

  “I have wielded my blade for a long while.” I used the driest academic tone possible, to forestall the double meaning inherent in the word for blade. “I do not need instruction.”

  “You are a pinquill, K’li.” The amusement in his tone warned me. “I should know better than to give you a pretty word.”

  “You should. I do not like pretty words.” I used the word for useless frippery, with a savage intonation, weary of this game. I had grown up listening to wordplay, to the singing rhythm of G’mai, but I suddenly had no taste for it where Darik was concerned.

  “Perhaps a bright blade can be more useful than pretty words.” The word he used so softly—darikaan—was so blatant as to need no explanation.

  Why are there no bodies? No arrows. No chopped bits of waggon. Where are the people who drove this caravan? “Perhaps. Yet I will keep my own blade. I have no use for another.”

  There. That was just vague enough for him to take as a compliment or a brush-off. Twas a nice touch, as it effectively closed the game. I had won.

  “For someone who did not speak for years, you have a facile tongue.” His tone grew serious. “Why are there no bodies? No carrion?”

  “I may not have spoken, but there is nothing amiss with my ears.” I touched my knifehilt again, running my fingers over the familiar soothing smoothness. I was doing so too frequently, lately, searching for comfort. After so long without, comfort seemed both useless and craven. “There are no bodies because the people did not die here.”

  “You think they died elsewhere? And I rather enjoy your ears, Kaia’li.” There it was again, that intimate tone.

  I could have blushed all the way to the sharp tips of said ears, coughed slightly. “I find it hard to believe anyone traveling with this caravan is still alive. Let my ears be.”

  I finished quartering the smoking waggons. There was not a single usable thing left in this ruin of a perfectly good caravan. It had been picked clean, or the people had left a-carrying their load like turtles.

  The horses. There were too many horses. Perhaps they fired the waggons and loaded the horses? But…wyverns. Whatever answers this riddle is beyond my ken.

  “Not even a touch?” Darik asked. “Or a look, or a sigh?”

  I gave him a sigh, a deep one. Why now? “We are in the midst of a ruined caravan, the tide approaches, and there are three wyverns on the loose, behaving as wyverns should not. I do not think now is the time to court me.”

  “If not now, when?”

  I spared the caravan one last sweeping glance before setting off for the hill. “I know not, Darik. I trained myself rather effectively not to even think of G’maihallan ever again. Then you bring your flawed dauq’adai and drop it in a barbarian’s pocket, and I find myself as the leader of a street troupe and fostering a Vulfentown wharf-rat. Truly the ways of the gods are strange.”

  “If pretty words will not help, and being a blade at your back will not help, what will? Help me, Kaia. I have never met a more difficult sparring-partner.” He sounded as if he meant it.

  That was a compliment, and twas unintentionally warming. I actually half-turned and gave him a smile. “Well. Tis nice to know. I thought I was losing my skill.”

  I might not have seen the flash of pain that crossed his face if I had not turned. I stopped short. He stared straight ahead, for the top of the hill. I heard a horse neigh—Atyarik’s black gelding, sensing our approach.

  What if the waggons were abandoned? But why would they be left here?

  That question was enough to warrant further thought. Yet I was distracted. “Darik?”

  “I swore I would not push you, K’li.” Dismissive. He still looked at the top of the hill, his eyebrows drawn together and his mouth tight.

  I sighed again, touched his shoulder, the one I had repaired his shirt over. My fingers met black G’mai cloth, brocade against my fingertips, and he gave me a startled glance.

  “Patience, D’ri. I am learning to be an adai, and the adai of a Dragaemir at that. Adai, s’tarei—we are thrown into this by the gods, who are probably having a right hearty laugh at our expense this moment. In any case, I have accepted you. There is no need to court me.”

  “What if I feel a need?” His black eyes were less guarded now, raw and open. “Am I not allowed?”

  I am not a toy or a courtesan, princeling. “I am fond you, D’ri. Do I have to share your bed now?”

  Did he look, for a moment, a trifle exasperated? “No. Not a bed. But it would be kind of you to share some small part of your heart. Even the Skaial
an receives more regard from you than I do.”

  “I am sorry, if you think so.” My throat was full of something difficult to speak through. “I…” My voice failed me, and still I touched him, unable to take my hand away. He was motionless under that touch. The wind rose, ruffling through grass, bringing the faint smell of smoke. A mystery to add to all other mysteries crowding my life now. I had been so utterly successful at avoiding entanglement before, sometimes at the cost of bloodshed. It mystified me to be caught so neatly and effortlessly now.

  He nodded, slowly, once it was apparent I could not say more. “I will wait, K’li. As long as necessary.”

  I found my eyes meeting his. Even my own gaze betrayed me—their gold would always mark me as flawed, among my own kind.

  Darik made a small restless movement. As if he wanted to say aught else, stopped himself.

  “I would not have you harmed, D’ri.” Quietly. Twas all I could give. “Now we must return to the others.”

  He nodded. I walked past him, my skin sensitive to his every movement. But something made me stop. I turned to face him again.

  “D’ri.” I noticed for the first time that I had shortened his name to a G’mai use-name, a mark of companionship. “I will try to hold you in higher regard.” As soon as twas out of my mouth, I regretted it. It sounded snide and unhelpful.

  He nodded thoughtfully, glanced over my shoulder at the still-smoking caravan. “Then I am happy.”

  I swore to myself and stamped away from him. I had wanted to see the burning caravan, not get entangled in a discussion with him about—

  What precisely had we been speaking of, anyway? I no longer knew.

  Chapter 33

  Rage and Fire

  We camped as the Sun was almost below the rim of the horizon. I had remembered there was a waystation here, a sheltered one, high stone walls we could defend if necessary.

  Two entrances—a large gap in the wall toward the front, and a smaller wooden door leading out the back. The enclosure held a well and a shed full of firewood, and the packed earth of the campground looked relatively free of rocks. A scorched circle of stones waited for a campfire, and I set Janaire and Diyan to building one. Redfist bolted the back door with a massive beam that looked near as long as my body, and Atyarik and Darik, both hunters, disappeared into the coney-filled grass. The minstrel and I occupied ourselves with unsaddling and caring for the horses, who had their own pen inside the packed-earth enclosure. We had plenty of grain, thanks to Atyarik, I would have been picketing the horses outside if I had not seen wyvern sign.

  I kept my silence as I worked, thinking. I had turned the mystery over and over in my head most of the day, and was no nearer a satisfactory conclusion.

  The only logical explanation ran thus: Some traveling-group disguised as a caravan had left the waggons on the beach and the wyverns had happened by. Who would travel disguised as a caravan?

  Shainakh army detachments, on the road north, someone’s voice rose in my memory. If twas a puzzle, I lacked a crucial piece; and that is enough to make any sellsword cautious.

  “You are quiet, lady,” Gavrin offered as he brushed down one of the sleek black G’mai horses. They liked his gentleness—one sniffed his light hair, lipping affectionately. “The caravan?”

  Ordinarily I would have bristled, that the minstrel could tell what I thought of, but this was no ordinary event. Three wyverns? Working in concert? And why, by the gods, were the waggons empty?

  Indeed, that the caravan had been abandoned was the only logical explanation. But why?

  “Yes, I am thinking on the caravan.” I drew the brush down the bay’s broad haunches. He shifted to lean into the stroke, and I leaned a bit more into him. “Three wyverns working together. It bodes ill.”

  “Is that why you sought this place?” He pushed the horse’s nose aside, gently, patting the broad neck. Against the slender grace of the G’mai beasts, his ragged red and yellow looked even more torn and faded, yet still cheerful. Was I thinking of dropping coin on clothing him, too? He sorely needed it.

  “If I were alone, I would pass the night in a tree. Or atop a large rock, and risk losing my horse. Wyverns are nothing to dice against. Three of them working together could mean sorcery—or worse.” The bay stamped, and I pushed against his side, keeping his hooves from my feet. “I do not like sorcery, and I like even less the thought of worse.”

  “I thought all Gemerh were sorcerers.”

  “No. We—they use Power. Tis not the same.” I drew the comb down. “The sorcerer enforces his will on the world, and so does the witch. Though in the higher levels, they say, they simply run with the natural flow and reorder the world. Tis complex.” The horse dropped his head, flicking his ears, enjoying the combing. I felt Darik’s silence coming back to camp. Twas exceedingly strange that I missed his presence.

  That flatters me, K’li, his voice whispered in my ear. I miss your presence, as well.

  I did not reply. If I had Power, as Darik and Janaire said—and especially a great deal of it, though I did not think it possible—the risk of jada’adai was very high. I could not be away from him for any considerable length of time without falling ill. After the last bout of twinsickness, I had no desire to repeat the experience.

  “It sounds complex.” Gavrin interrupted my musings. He looked interested. “The other lady Gemerh, is she a witch?”

  “No, she is adai. A twin. She holds a great amount of Power, and Atyarik is her defense. Tis so, the adai and s’tarei, twins. One to hold the Power, the other to defend. The s’tarei makes certain the adai does not drain herself into death, and the adai makes certain the s’tarei is not attacked from behind.” I finished and patted the bay’s neck. He whickered with pleasure, and the gray crowded close, hungry for attention.

  “Are there Gemerh men born with Power?”

  I do not wish to explain this. I wish even less to think on it. I turned to the gray. “The s’tarei’sa have some inborn talents, like speaking to animals or a sense of danger, or the silence. Tis said the gods only gave the s’tarei’sa certain gifts, because of the risk of a man using them in anger. Rage is a risk for the s’tarei, and the adai must hold them to mercy. Tis an old tale, that the Elders in the Silver Ships gave the G’mai the task of protecting the Blessed Lands, and gave them the gift of Power to do so—but there had to be something to save them from hubris, and the twinning does so. For every G’mai, a twin. Except me.” I drew the comb down, picked the loose matted hair from it, did so again.

  “But you have a twin.” He moved to his bony, biscuit-brown nag. “The prince.”

  I shrugged, glancing at the walls, each stone fitted carefully. The wind would come chill off the sea tonight, if my nose told me aright; I was glad to have the shelter of walls. “It appears so.”

  “He must feel for you, Lady Kaia. I saw him, after the duel. He was pale, and—”

  I do not wish to make my uncertainty fodder for your songs. I was unable to think of how to extricate myself from this conversation politely. “What did you think of the duel?”

  “Twas magnificent,” he said immediately, and I winced to think of another song born. “But when the barbarian carried you from the dueling ground, I stayed to watch the prince. He appeared to be weeping without tears. He simply sheathed his sword and—”

  Oh, Mother’s tits. Cease this. “Gavrin. I do not wish to hear more.”

  The minstrel shrugged. “As you like, lady.”

  “Tis Kaia. Not lady.” I saw Darik and Atyarik come back into the waystation. They were both carrying fat glossy coneys. “Look, there they are.”

  “Twas quick.”

  “G’mai are good with bows. We have sharp eyes.” And sharp ears. And sharp words, even for each other. The childhood proverb rose in memory, and my shoulders hunched. I had spent so long seeking not to think of my homeland, but now G’maihallan was pursuing the least of its daughters even across the Lan’ai.

  “Truly a blessed people,” G
avrin murmured.

  I made a short noise, not quite disagreement but close. “Other peoples are free to love where they will. G’mai have a marriage forced upon them. Tis not so much of a blessing, sometimes.”

  “Is that what you hate him for?”

  Hate who? Darik? “I do not hate him.” I found it true. I did not hate Darik.

  I did not hate him at all. There lay the heart of the problem. He deserved a finer adai than I could ever be.

  I blew out through pursed lips as the horse whickered, and looked to the sky, checking the weather again. Janaire waved a greeting to Atyarik—she and the barbarian already had the stewpot out, and something simmering. Adding the coneys would make a fine dinner. Her soft Gavridar face lit up.

  Twas beautiful to see, Janaire and her s’tarei. She touched his shoulder when he reached her, softly, and light entered his spare Tyaanismir face. He seemed to truly care for her. Of course, she was a beautiful G’mai girl, and was all the things a G’mai girl should be—a pretty adai, talented with Power, and soft in all the ways a G’mai girl was trained to be.

  She was not silent, harsh and flawed.

  I think you are exactly as you should be. Darik’s voice caressed my cheek, my hair. I could not have asked the gods for more.

  Tis a nice sentiment, I replied, but I do not believe you. And cease listening to my thoughts without being invited. Tis rude.

  He made no reply, giving his brace of coneys over to Atyarik and turning toward the horses. He crossed the packed earth gracefully. I looked over the gray’s back, my eyes meeting his across the distance. Despite my sharpness, twas a look of silent accord—his worry matched mine. Something did not seem aright. I had not said sorcery to Darik, but I thought on it, and he could certainly feel the direction my thoughts were wending. A sorcerer unleashing pet wyverns on a convenient set of waggons—destroying something?

  Enemies? But there were no bodies. Evidence?