Second Sight: Second Tale of the Lifesong

by Greg Hamerton

  “In the face of an army?” Garyll objected. “We shall be defenceless before them.”

  “Then they will have no reason to harm us. We have done nothing,” Tabitha answered, feeling the deep truth of her words. She hoped her truthsense still worked, out here in Oldenworld.

  “We did nothing to that colossal man in the wastes, and he was none too friendly,” he reminded her.

  The drumming sound was repeated, they were hitting their spears upon their tall curved shields as they ran. The leader raised a pipe to his lips; a few moments later the mournful call reached their ears.

  “Stand by me, please,” she implored him, holding onto his arm. He only met her eyes for an instant.

  “I’ll stand by you,” he answered, “but I think you’re being too trusting.” He began to loosen his baton from his belt, but stopped. It would be useless against two hundred spears.

  The tramping of many feet became louder, until it was more than near enough for the men to hear. The approaching warriors were chanting a song, one which passed backward through the phalanx as they jogged along.

  “Jorek, kahn, mirid, bakir—” called four men in turn.

  “Jak jin jeer,” they chorused.

  “Mrekken, tosti, ahhai, lôth—”

  “Jerrik vinn nageer!”

  Their voices were strong and jubilant, if somewhat out of tune. Their faces were grey, with jutting chins and high-bridged noses, and their skin looked stony. Their foreheads shone like marble. Tabitha wondered if it was a kind of grit they pasted on their bodies. Darker whorls adorned their cheeks and necks. Their arms were marked as well. Their clothing was colourful and loose; their trousers ended in plaited tassels that flapped against their wide-toed boots.

  The Eyrians stood side by side on the mossy road and awaited their old enemy.

  The lead warriors became suddenly alert and the piper issued a sharp note. The warriors slid to a halt. Those farther back bunched up upon the lead members, jostling and muttering among themselves, but when they saw the Eyrians they become suddenly organised, their spears held ready, their shields covering their right flanks from ankle to shoulder. The piper disappeared through the front rank of warriors. The leaders were big, broad-shouldered fellows with heavy bands of black streaking up and away from their eyes.

  The warriors approached slowly, like wolves that had sensed a hidden threat. They scanned the trees.

  Tabitha spread her hands outward to show them she was harmless.

  “Yo chi carom!” shouted one of the big leaders.

  “Bali beg skik elekelen?” asked a second warrior, one who carried a bunched net in his free hand instead of a spear.

  “Isye hunterkinned?” demanded a third.

  The words sounded somewhat familiar, but the pronunciation was incomprehensible.

  “Whattaree beplace sofarrinnin llanderlûk?”

  The warrior shook his spear at them. Tabitha’s heart sank. They spoke another language! How was she going to convince them of anything?

  “We come in peace!” shouted Garyll. “We seek to talk with you, not to fight you.”

  The warriors paused, surprised.

  “We have come from the desert,” Tabitha added. “We are looking for the low lands.”

  “Yo cajrek skol Koramandin?”

  “Bridlok!” a man with a thinner voice scolded from behind the leaders. “Stan camtonden!” A craggy-faced man pushed through the front rank. He wore a headscarf that was more gold than red, with heavier knots than the others. He brandished a finger at the warriors. “They use the tongue of the kingdoms three. Old tongue! You would this better recognise if you your full ten years with your tattler spent. Dûnmarken!”

  The warriors looked belligerently at the elder but parted for him as he approached.

  “Come you from the lowlands?” asked the elder.

  “No, we come from Eyri, across the desert,” answered Tabitha.

  “South by two days, maybe three on foot,” Garyll confirmed.

  “Eyri! So the windrunners’ tale is true!” the elder exclaimed. “But now you are in the land of Lûk!”

  “Ba tektek,” he said in a low voice, and the warriors tensed.

  Tabitha’s heart began to flutter. The elder signalled and before Tabitha could do anything, a fine net whistled upon them. Even Garyll was caught by the speed of the cast. They tried to escape, but the double-layered net tangled them tighter with each movement. The grey-skinned horde encircled them quickly, their sharp-tipped spears angled toward the trio. Tabitha stopped struggling.

  “On the knees,” demanded the elder.

  “Please, we haven’t done a thing,” she cried, “We come in peace! We weren’t there when you fought in Eyri. We weren’t there! Please, that was hundreds of years ago!”

  The spears were so close. Patterns ran down the shafts, all the way to the hollow angled points. The tips were dark-stained. They had been used before.

  “Jek? Musti kan! Are these the strangers for we looking are?”

  A stern-looking fellow came up to look at them. His face was weathered; the whorls in his skin really did look as if they were carved in stone. The short sleeves of his shirt were tied off with loose ribbons at the elbows. His eyes held a smouldering anger, but he was restrained by a hard discipline.

  “Boh! These are new to me.” He bent close to Tabitha. “Do you know Bevinn and Gabreel?”

  Tabitha looked at the man in surprise. He knew of Prince Bevn! But who was Gabreel? None other than the Shadowcaster, Gabrielle, she realised. They must be travelling together.

  “Yes, I know of them,” she said with guarded care. “Bevn is the prince of Eyri.” So Bevn travelled with the Shadowcaster. She remembered the tracks across the desert, and wondered if the stone-skinned folk had helped Bevn and Gabrielle pass across the wastes. If that was true, then she shouldn’t tell them that they were chasing Bevn. They should say that they were his friends.

  “Are you with him, or against him?” demanded their stern-looking interrogator.

  She paused, uncertain. Did the Lûk support Bevn? What if they were against him? Then lying wouldn’t help her at all. She chose the truth.

  “We are tracking him, we came to catch him. We must take him back to Eyri, before it is too late.”

  Their interrogator straightened. “Rook!” he exclaimed. “They carry justice! They are my friends!”

  “Wait Jek, we know too little,” said the elder. He faced Tabitha but didn’t approach any closer. “Who are you in the land from where you say you come?”

  “My name is Tabitha. I am a singer, I work with…magic.” She waved her hands as well as she could, to indicate casting a spell.

  An immediate tension ran through the men. The spears snapped into place, sharp points at the ready.

  “Daa! Bakrekishan! You have been touched by the dorra?”

  “No!” Tabitha answered, afraid to provoke them. “What is the dorra?”

  “She is a healer,” said Garyll. “A wizard.”

  “Wizzard?” said the elder with a hint of trepidation in his gravelly voice. “Alike the Sorcerer?”

  “Like the Gyre, but not so strong, I am ... new to it.” Twardy Zarost hadn’t spoken much about the Gyre, but she knew she didn’t have anything near their level of power.

  “Gyre,” he said, rolling the word as if tasting it. “That’s a word not many would know, or dare to speak, and so you prove yourself in the naming.” He squinted at Tabitha. “A new wizard? There are only seven mahgu we know of, eight if you count the one who makes a riddle of them.” The elder took half a step forward, and peered down at Tabitha as if she were a fascinating but deadly snake. “It is unexpected.” His eyes narrowed. “The strike in dorra yesterday, the sosisshon, did you call that down?”

  “The wildfire? I ... didn’t expect it. I didn’t know it worked that way.”

  The elder looked puzzled. “Yet you say you are alike the Gyre? The dorra—wild fire—does not do this in Eyree?”


  “Eyri has a shield…or it used to, until Bevn stole the crown.” And then I blew the Shield into the ever-and-never. “We do not have this wildfire in Eyri.”

  The elder shook his head slowly, as if what she said was incomprehensible. “I cannot tell if you are a good thing for us, or bad,” he said at length. “Who are your companions?”

  “Garyll is—”

  “I am her guardian,” said Garyll from beneath the net. “And this is Mulrano, a fisherman. We come in peace.”

  The elder considered them for a long moment.

  “It is strange in our land for a fisherman to have such a big axe,” the elder commented.

  “We have big fish in Eyri,” Garyll replied with a knowing expression.

  The elder laughed then, and the heavy knots of his golden headscarf danced. “You protect her,” he said simply. He jerked his hand up and one of the warriors whisked the net away.

  “Forgive us for the rough beginning.” He helped Tabitha to her feet. “I am Spearleader Sihkran, from the Fifth Dja, or the Fifth spoke if I the right word have. I will allow passage through the six-sided land for those who know the business of the Gyre. We would not in their way get. Forgive us, we have strangers seldom in our land whom we wish to welcome, and your Bevinn has a bad introduction of your kind left.”

  “What has Bevn done?” Garyll asked.

  A sadness shadowed Sihkran’s stony face. “He killed two men. Captain Jek and his windrunners were hired for them across the wastes to bring, and so Jek would have, had the bogadin not pushed one windrunner into the dorra and let his woman the other kill. They escaped from the captain as well. I suppose that puts you in the same position as Jek here. We march now to Rôgspar and then into the Huntersland, to demand Bevn handed over be. We know that they have him. Jek tracked the boy and his woman to the forest, but only a fool would go into those parts with a small crew. The Hunters are savage with their arrows, but we have a full Dja. We are ready. We go.”

  They were going to seek out Bevn! Tabitha was overjoyed. “May we come with you?” she asked Sihkran.

  Sihkran considered them for a long moment. “I believe not that you should the six-sided land alone wander. You will most likely for Hunters mistaken be. We almost that mistake made. It was a good thing you spoke in the Old Tongue when you did. We thought you part of an ambush were. We would have killed you.”

  He turned to the many warriors assembled around them, and addressed them in rolling Lûkish for some time. The men farthest away tried to peer over the shoulders of those in front to better see the strange trio from Eyri. There was much nodding and shared looks, then Sihkran raised his fist and the men slapped their spears against their shields and the piper blew his mournful tones.

  “Come then,” said Sihkran. “We run our justice into the Huntersland.”

  _____

  Prince Bevn, King Bevn, was bored. They had been in the rank and dripping tent all day long, sitting out the rain, waiting for the Wizard Black Saladon to return from his “urgent matters”, and now it was well into the night. All of the previous day, he’d just wished to reach the promised Hunter settlement, wished for a pause in Saladon’s relentless pace, for shelter as the great cloud built over the forests and the heavy rain began to pelt down, but now all he wished for, was to leave.

  Bevn sniffed. He’d thought Bradach Hide had been primitive. This place, Willower, was pitiful by comparison. It reeked of tar. The apex of the tent was only fifteen foot up the gnarled trunk they’d built it around, and it was made from patched hides sewn with thong stretched over curved saplings. The floor was mud. The fireplace was cold. The Hunters had told him it would remain so while it rained, for with fires you either got a closed tent with too much smoke, or an open-topped tent filled with rain and wet logs on the hearth. Bevn wished he didn’t need their shelter, or he would have told them what he thought of their slack-wit architecture. Surely somebody in their in-bred family could work out a way to make a wretched covered flue. These people were dumb, they were ugly, and they were uncultured, the lot of them.

  The only light came from three blackened oil lamps, which they hoarded at the main table around their game of knuk. It was a strategy game played with carved knuckles of wood. Bevn had been useless at it. After losing his blanket in his wager, he’d cursed the stupid game and had gone to sulk at a crumbling table with stumps for seats. A girl too young to waste his time on had given him a meal, but he’d left it half-eaten. The smoked meat he’d stolen from the shed outside had been better. She returned with a mug of juiced water, and he’d sent her away to get him the “heartwoodbrew” everyone else was drinking. He had no time to be treated like a child, especially by a scrawny maiden.

  He was a grown man, he would be king. He was a king, he corrected himself. Blasted commoners!

  He tried to drain the mug when it came, but it was too strong and bitter for him to stomach. He belched like a soldier and asked the girl for something wicked, like jurrum leaf, but she grew more and more puzzled, and he couldn’t make her understand what he was asking her. Her affected language drove him mad.

  She understood some of the names he called her well enough though, because she left in tears.

  Stupid wench. She should learn to speak properly then he wouldn’t have called her a cleft-tongued flat-chested hellhag. He wished the Hunter men would leave the main tent and go to their own hovels. He wanted to be left alone, so that he could try his luck with Gabrielle. She had drunk a good quantity of the heartwoodbrew, he had counted the servings—five whole mugs, and he knew now that it was heady stuff. Surely she would be pliable. In Ravenscroft he’d heard that if you made the women drunk enough, they would do anything. Anything!

  He shifted on his seat; his trousers were uncomfortably tight again. Across the tent, Gabrielle laughed, and the lamplight caught her throat, her opened shirt. She had loosened another button, be damned if she hadn’t! Men were gathered around her, watching her play knuk against a well-muscled veteran. The man made a move on the table and he took one of Gabrielle’s pieces. The other Hunters cheered. Gabrielle smiled and slid her hand into her shirt. She slowly, slowly, let the button loose. Some dirty hunter woman scowled and left the tent. The men laughed and leant eagerly forward again to see what Gabrielle’s move would be.

  Bevn understood that the veteran was wagering mugs of ale, and she, the buttons of her shirt. She was teasing them, he could see it, the glistening interest in the men’s eyes, their fascination. She was playing them; she would probably take the highest bidder to her bed, or name a price only an enthralled man would consider. There was something about her that made him want to compete too, and he couldn’t figure out what it was that she did. It made him want to fight her. It made him want to own her.

  The brew buzzed through his veins. The rain hammered with a hundred little fingers on the tent.

  Why should they have her? It couldn’t be too hard to convince her to lie with a king. He dwelled on that thought, over and over, as his courage swelled. He took another glug of drink then slammed it down. He wouldn’t be afraid, not of a woman.

  “Gabrielle!” He raised his voice to carry over the conversations at the main table.

  She turned. Her dark eyes looked into his soul.

  He swallowed. “It’s time for us to go to bed.”

  Some of the men chuckled.

  “Really?” she asked. Her eyes were girlish for a moment, but then she measured him with a level gaze.

  “We ... have a long way to go, tomorrow,” he said.

  She smiled a little smile. “That’s sweet of you Bevn, to look out for me, but I can keep my own bed time. I’ll be strong in the morning, ready to travel at Saladon’s hard pace.” She watched him still, but Bevn’s eyes dropped to the open invitation of her shirt. One more button and her breasts would be properly exposed.

  “I’m going to bed, then.” He hated the way he wasn’t saying what he wanted to say.

  “I’ll see you at dawn then.” She rais
ed her tankard to him.

  Her knowing smile made his knees weak. Ask her, damn it! You carry the command of the Kingsrim.

  “Join me.” There, he had said it.

  She smiled and looked puzzled for a long moment then her smile became a little twisted. “What do you have to offer in return? I can choose from many fine men tonight,” she said. There was a spontaneous laughter from the Hunters. “Why should I choose you?”

  She’d said that, out there in front of all of them. Bevn felt his ears warming. How dare she?

  A few more men looked his way. Some grinned, some even laughed.

  Damn her! I am the King! King! King! He clenched his teeth against the growing laughter. I wear the Kingsrim! I should not be so challenged by a woman!

  “You shall earn my favour,” he said, as regally as he could manage. When his father spoke like that, all manner of people would scuttle and fawn about. But the smile dropped off her face, and her gaze became cold and…sober.

  “My price is far higher than that.”

  Money, money, all she thought of was money! Well, his family had lots of it, didn’t they?

  “I know how to get into the treasury in Stormhaven,” he said.

  “If it must still be stolen, then it is not yours to bargain with.” Her voice was like ice.

  “I will pay you a full gold now, then!” He had only a few Eyrian coins in his pocket. He didn’t really know what one paid for a woman, but he guessed that was a fair exchange considering it was only one night.

  Gabrielle’s glare pinned him to the wall. “Even a bearded crone has more pride than to accept such an offer,” she spat. “Your gold is worthless out here in the Huntersland. Run along to bed, little boy, and take your need to your palm.”

  His eyes stung with unshed hot tears, and a whispering anger rose on shadowed wings within him. She mocked him! She was making him look like a fool in front of these rough men.

  He raised his voice. “You’re just a greedy slut who is a few ruts short of growing deathrash!”

  Gabrielle was up on the table and leaping for him before he could turn to run. She flew toward him, feet first. He tried to stumble out of the way, but she caught his head between her thighs and bore him down. He was trapped in a crushing grip, his head off the floor, looking up at Gabrielle. His crown slipped, and struck the ground behind him with a dull thud. She squeezed the life out of his neck. Her thighs gripped him like an iron clamp. Her cold fury washed over him.