by Lara Morgan
‘I’m coming with you.’ She put a hand on his arm and he almost smiled.
‘You won’t take no for an answer, will you? Jared’s sister Irissa was a fearsome one for that as well. Always went her own way.’ His voice faded, the anguish again in his eyes.
‘I’m sure he’s still alive,’ Shaan said.
‘No, you’re not.’
‘I hope,’ she said softly, and thought of the handsome man she’d first met when Tallis came to Salmut. ‘I can’t think what Azoth would have to gain by killing him.’
‘Our pain.’ He was right, but something told her Jared was still alive.
‘One day we will see him again,’ she said.
Tallis didn’t reply and she knew he was thinking of the desert; the dry air with the scent of dust and desert flower. She could almost smell it as he thought of it. She felt the echo of his ache spread through her. The memory of a place she didn’t know. She stared out of the cart. They were on the street that led to the central market and crowds of people were blocking their way. The driver was trying to urge the muthu through when Tallis stiffened and sat straight, searching the crowd.
‘What is it?’ She followed his gaze, trying to see what he saw.
‘I don’t —’ He suddenly leaped to his feet and leaned out of the cart, thumping the side. ‘Stop!’ he shouted at the driver. ‘Stop the cart!’
He looked wildly back at her.
‘Come with me!’ He pulled her out and into the street. It was crowded with people but he dragged her with him, pushing them out of the way. Her leg, already weary and aching from the swim, hindered their progress and she felt power rise in him as his frustration grew. It must have shown on his face, as men, women and children shrank from his path as he led her up the street toward the market.
Surging through the crowd he went straight for a small stall where two women stood with their backs to them.
‘Mother!’ he called, and Shaan’s chest clenched, her breath vanishing. She stopped, pulling out of his grip.
The women turned. ‘Tallis?’ The older woman cried out and threw her arms about him as he caught her in a tight embrace. She was taller than Shaan, but not much, her hair dark and straight and her eyes, azure blue, wide with surprise. The younger woman did not embrace him but looked as if she might be struggling to stop herself from joining them.
Shaan stood still just behind them, cold with shock. Why hadn’t Tallis said who he’d seen? He must know she would recognise her. Mailun. Their mother. The face he had shown her in his mind. She had not truly imagined her mother to be real.
‘Tallis, who’s this?’ The younger woman was staring at Shaan. Something was familiar about her but Shaan was too overwhelmed to think what it was. And then Mailun saw her. Slowly she pulled out of Tallis’s embrace and stood very, very still.
‘Mother,’ he said, and put a hand on Shaan’s arm. ‘This is Shaan. I found her. We found each other.’ He looked at her with more brightness in his gaze than she had yet seen, but Shaan felt numb.
Mailun moved a step forward. ‘I would recognise you anywhere,’ she said softly.
Shaan felt unsteady, as if she were drunk.
‘Tallis, who is this?’ the young woman demanded.
‘Irissa,’ he smiled, ‘this is my sister.’
Irissa? Shaan was confused. Jared’s sister. What was she doing here?
Mailun took another step toward her. ‘Daughter.’ She reached for her, as if she would embrace her, but then stopped and took hold of her forearms instead.
‘I knew you had survived.’ She trembled with suppressed need and Shaan was suddenly filled to choking with an emotion that frightened her. She wanted to let Mailun embrace her, to feel this woman’s arms around her — but that hard inner core she’d come to count on would not let her. She was a stranger and Shaan had given up hoping for a different kind of mother a long time ago. She stiffened, drawing away.
‘My mother brought me here when I was a baby,’ she said, and then regretted her choice of words as Mailun flinched and let her go.
‘She means the woman who raised her, Mother,’ Tallis said swiftly.
‘I know, son,’ Mailun said, but did not turn her eyes from Shaan. ‘I am glad another kept you alive when I couldn’t.’
Shaan didn’t know what to say, but was saved by the younger woman stepping forward with impatience. ‘Since when did you have a sister, Tallis?’ she said. ‘And where is Jared?’
A look crossed Tallis’s face that Shaan was glad the young woman didn’t see.
‘Let’s get off the street,’ he said.
‘No, you tell me now.’ Irissa stood in his path, her face sharp with anger. She was a tall girl, plainly used to not backing down.
Shaan’s heart faltered.
Tallis paused and when he spoke his voice was rough. ‘He was injured in a fight. I had to leave him in the Wild Lands.’
‘What?’ Irissa went suddenly pale beneath the darkness of her skin. ‘Is he alive?’
‘We don’t know; he was when I left him.’ Tallis shook his head, his eyes going to his mother. ‘We couldn’t go back for him.’
‘What do you mean?’ Irissa demanded. ‘And who is we?’
‘He means me,’ Shaan said quietly. ‘I was with him.’
‘You?’ Irissa turned on her. Around them people were starting to stare and a few of the looks were less than friendly, but Irissa seemed oblivious.
‘Why?’ she said. ‘What were you doing? How has this happened?’
‘Irissa,’ Mailun spoke, ‘you remember some of the stories we’ve heard here in the market, the pictures we’ve seen of a man and a woman on serpents.’
‘The heroes?’ she spoke with disbelief.
‘We’re not heroes,’ Shaan said. ‘It was Azoth; he’s the cause of all this.’
‘Who is Azoth?’ Irissa’s voice was loud and Shaan saw several people begin backing away from them.
Her temper rose. This woman was going to get them into strife. ‘We can’t talk about it here,’ she said.
‘I’ll talk about what I like where I like,’ Irissa said, and Mailun stepped up to her.
‘No, you won’t.’ Her voice was low but filled with enough heat that the young woman hesitated.
‘I’m sorry, Irissa. If I could have saved him I would have,’ Tallis said. ‘You know that.’
The hardness on the young clanswoman’s face faltered but didn’t fully disappear. ‘You —’
‘Stop.’ Mailun interrupted her. ‘Now is not the time or place.’ She too had noticed the tension building. ‘Tallis, where can we go?’
His expression was miserable. ‘I’ll take you to where I stay. There’s room for you both there.’
‘Good. Let’s get our things then.’ She turned away.
They had been staying in a small boarding house not far from the market and the two women quickly retrieved their packs and followed Shaan and Tallis back to the cart. The driver, used to Shaan’s odd expeditions, had pulled up on the side of the road and was waiting for them. He showed no sign of curiosity when the four of them climbed in and he turned the muthu and headed back toward the yards without comment. Mailun sat beside Shaan, Tallis beside Jared’s sister. None of them spoke, but Mailun glanced at Shaan occasionally as if to assure herself she was real, and every time Shaan saw her she felt a small shock; she was familiar but in a way that seemed insubstantial.
When they reached the Dome, Tallis placed their things in the crell next to his and Mailun began to prepare a pot of kaf with the efficiency of a woman used to providing for others. She found cups, the stove and water as if she’d been in the crell before and despite herself, Shaan found that effortless domesticity strangely comforting.
Mailun handed her the cups. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘help me. Tallis always spills things.’
Behind them Tallis and Irissa sat silently, separated as far as was possible. When Shaan handed him a cup he looked at her with tired eyes. Irissa refused with a curt
shake of her head.
‘Now, son.’ Mailun sat on Tallis’s bedroll and placed her cup on the bare stone beside her. ‘Tell me how you lost so much of yourself.’
‘Is it that obvious?’ he said.
She held his gaze. ‘Tell your story,’ she replied.
Tallis was silent a moment and Shaan felt the burden heavy upon him as he summoned the strength to tell them.
He closed his eyes briefly and then so low it was almost a whisper said, ‘After we left, we stopped at the Stolen Well. That’s where they set upon me — Karnit’s men. Penrit, Relldin …’ He stopped and took a breath, compressed his lips. ‘That was the blood that Shila saw. Their blood on my hands. They intended to slit my throat and they nearly did, but then … Jared saved me. He came out of the dark with a knife.’
He paused and then said, ‘He cut down two, I finished one. Then we fled.’
‘But that’s not the end of your story,’ Mailun said. ‘There’s more, son; tell it all.’
Shaan’s heart was beating too fast and she knew it was because it was echoing her brother’s.
Tallis took in a long sigh then nodded and began to tell how he and Jared had come to Salmut, how he had met Shaan and how everything had begun to change, how they had begun to change. How Azoth had come and how he had left Jared in the Wild Lands and brought Shaan back from the god’s hands. He did not tell all, though; he didn’t tell her about how Shaan might be able to heal, or her dreams, and he didn’t tell her what he had done at the village. Or yet about Rorc and the plan to unite the Clans.
After he was finished Mailun said, ‘Your path has been such a hard one, son; it pains me to hear it. And I always knew Karnit was of bad blood. There was nothing you could do. If you and Jared had not drawn a blade, it would have been you lying dead in the sand. Karnit will be the ruin of the Jalwalah. I cannot think what tales he would have brought back from the Gathering.’
‘It won’t matter,’ Tallis said. ‘Who will be there to deny them?’
‘Not Jared, for one,’ Irissa said.
‘It wasn’t Tallis’s fault,’ Shaan said. ‘He couldn’t fight Azoth. Would you rather he had died?’
Irissa’s look was cold. ‘I would have fought him.’
‘And he would have gutted you,’ Shaan said. ‘If you want to blame someone, blame me. I’m the one he was after, I’m the one who led Jared to try to defy him and I’m the one who has handed Azoth back his power.’
‘Shaan, no, it’s not that simple,’ Tallis said, and turned on Irissa. ‘Why did you come here?’ he said, but it was Mailun who answered.
‘Shila, the Dreamer, sent us,’ she said. ‘We came to look for you — both of you.’
‘Shila?’ Tallis said. ‘She sent Jared to me.’
‘Yes. She’s the Dreamer, son, the desert gods like to push her to their will.’ Her tone hardened as she spoke of the Guides. ‘But Shila has always sought to protect us. I can’t think she would have known what would happen.’
‘Or she didn’t care,’ Irissa said.
There was a moment of silence, then Tallis asked, ‘Have they Outcast him? Jared. Do you know?’
‘We don’t,’ Mailun said. ‘Karnit hadn’t returned from the Gathering when we left. Shila came to us saying she had seen things, seen you both, seen bloodshed. She thought it could go one way or the other. That is why we came to find you and Jared.’
‘To take him home,’ Irissa said, ‘to give him a chance to still be Clan.’
‘He is still Clan!’ Tallis said with ferocity. ‘I am Outcast, not him.’
‘It doesn’t matter what you say.’ Irissa’s chin went up, her green eyes glaring.
‘Irissa, enough!’ Mailun said. ‘No doubt Karnit will sway them with his lies when he returns, but for now we can do nothing, and tearing at each other will change nothing.’ She looked at Shaan again, then at Tallis. ‘I have a story to tell you now about your past, about my past. About the people we come from, the Ichindar.’
It was such a departure from their argument that all of them paused.
‘The Ice People?’ Shaan said. She had forgotten Tallis had told her their mother had originally come from the great northern wastes.
Mailun’s gaze softened and there was pride in her voice as she said, ‘It’s not just desert that runs in your veins, daughter, but ice. Ice and snow, the deep floes, the frozen plain.
‘When Tallis spoke about Azoth and his belief that you are his descendants it made me remember something.’ Her face became grave. ‘When I was a young girl my first great-mother told me a story of our family. A very old story. In the Ice Lands we have no writing. All our knowledge is passed down through the memories of our great-parents. She told it to me only once but I have always remembered it. Perhaps because it was the coldest icebite season we’d had for a long while.’ She smiled. ‘I would like to show you the snow lands one day; I think you would like them.’ Her smile faded. ‘We were all deep inside the mountain around our family fires while a great storm raged outside. It lasted three weeks. My first great-mother told me that a long time ago during sundance, when the snows had melted and the seas had opened again, a young woman came from far away. She was almost dead from hunger and exposure, clothed only in a light dress and with nothing on her feet. Her toes were half eaten by the bite and her words almost impossible to understand.
‘Our family took her in. Six months later she birthed a child. A small boy came from her womb as the world turned to ice. He was a happy child, handsome to the eye, and possessed a laugh and humour that the other children loved. Some of the elders said they thought they saw a strangeness in him, but if they thought to talk of it, they soon decided they were mistaken. For what harm could a child be? He grew strong and tall while his mother grew frail and sickly. She passed on to the Sun Lands one day in his twelfth year. The boy was very sad for a long while. He would go for walks on his own across the ice, sometimes disappearing for days in a canoe. A girl of our family grew fond of him and helped him recover from his sadness. They became close and in his seventeenth year, they made the snow dance together. Within a year she was with child, but the pregnancy did not go well; she lost the baby within three moons. It was only after losing three little ones that she finally gave birth to a girl.’ Mailun stopped and pushed the hair back off her shoulders, giving Shaan a slight smile. ‘It’s a sad tale. The sundance after the child’s birth the boy and the girl went to the further shores to fish. When they came back the girl was dead and the boy would not talk about what had happened. He paddled his canoe back, the baby strapped to his chest and his young heart mate dead at his feet. The girl was burned and none spoke of it again.’
‘What happened to the boy?’ Shaan said. The tale had filled her with a cold, scared feeling.
‘He raised the child on his own and when his daughter was in her twelfth year he went fishing to the further shores and never returned. That girl is your ancestor.’
They were all silent.
‘So Azoth’s legacy is from your side, not our father’s,’ Tallis finally said, and Mailun nodded.
‘I haven’t thought about that tale for many years, but now …’ She folded her hands in her lap. ‘That young woman came from the warm wet forests far to the south of the lands of the Ichindar.’ She looked at Shaan. ‘It must be the Wild Lands, where he took you.’
Mailun didn’t say any more, for which Shaan was glad. She didn’t want to talk about that place, or the ruined city.
‘Who is our father?’ she asked.
‘He’s dead,’ Tallis answered, but Shaan was looking at Mailun and saw the sudden tightness around her eyes.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said.
Tallis got to his feet. ‘Shaan, we should go. The Guardian is probably looking for you and I have to go and see Rorc.’
Shaan rubbed the back of her neck, then noticed that Mailun was looking strange, her whole body suddenly stiff.
‘Mother, are you all right?’ Tallis said.
/> Immediately she seemed to make an effort to relax. ‘Yes, just tired, all this strangeness.’ She smiled, but it was weak, and Shaan thought she saw something behind her eyes. Fear?
‘You don’t have to stay here,’ Tallis said. ‘I can ask Rorc if we could find other rooms for you.’
‘No,’ she answered quickly, ‘we are better here. This is all we need. Besides, I can smell the sea here. I haven’t caught that scent for many years. I’ve missed it.’ She paused. ‘Who is Rorc?’
‘The Commander of the Faithful. I’ve been working with him, training with the Seducers and riders here. You could meet him, if you want to.’
‘No, no, not now,’ Mailun’s response was hurried. ‘Don’t bother him with us. I’m sure he has enough to do.’
Tallis smiled, puzzled. ‘All right, but tomorrow you should come with us. I take Shaan swimming every morning to strengthen her limbs.’
‘Does that mean you are finally able to use the skills I taught you, son?’
‘I’m not as good as some but —’ he glanced at Irissa, ‘— I could teach you if you like.’
‘What for?’ the young woman said. ‘I can keep my head in the hot springs; that’s enough, I think.’
Tallis’s smile faded under her cool stare.
‘I’ll come by in a cart at dawn,’ Shaan said. ‘The beach is near here.’
Mailun nodded, but her face looked strained. ‘I will wait for you then.’
‘Come on.’ Tallis put a hand on Shaan’s arm. He looked at Mailun. ‘I’ll be back before dark.’
‘We’ll be here, son.’ Mailun rose and put her arms around him, holding him close for a moment before letting him go. She looked at Shaan. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, daughter.’
Daughter. The word sounded strange. ‘Yes, tomorrow,’ Shaan said. Her left arm was aching and she hugged it tight to her body as she followed Tallis out.
Chapter 12
‘Where have you been?’ Nilah snapped as soon as Shaan arrived in her quarters later that morning.
‘I told you I was going for a swim.’ Shaan was still reeling from meeting her mother and struggled to find the patience to deal with the young Guardian. ‘It took longer than I thought to get back; the streets were crowded with refugees.’