by Jo Clayton
Feeling helpless and afraid, Tuli did what she was told and sank onto one of the pillows; she crossed her legs and spread shaking fingers on her thighs. Teras stood beside her. His hands were fisted against his side as he struggled with his own inner turmoil. He hated giving away to emotion, needed the feeling that he was in control of his body if not of his life. He faced Fariyn determined to give nothing more than he absolutely had to.
Fariyn sighed. She rested her arms along the carved wood, her fingers closing on the worn finials. “Sit down, boy. We’re not going to eat you.”
He flushed, his ears turning pink. Moving stiffly, he folded down, perching on the pillow like a scutter about to run.
“I thank you.” Fariyn smiled, her eyes amused again. She turned to Gorem. “We have a mystery here, friend. Two local lads sneaking out to hunt small game, he tells us, innocent as a new-hatched foal. But one of the lads isn’t a lad at all, though a sibling certainly, given the strong likeness between them. Brother and sister, I think. And he won’t name his pa, a simple enough thing one would think. And the two of them panic when I talk about giving them over to an Agli.” She chuckled. “Though I don’t fault their taste in that.”
“Nor I.” Gorem leaned back against the wall, relaxed, the lamp over his head lighting gleams in his sunken eyes. “It does give us a strong bargaining point.”
Teras glanced at Tuli. She reached out and took his hand. “I don’t know,” she said softly, slowly. “Gong?”
“No.” His fingers tightened around hers. “No warnings.”
“What do we do?”
“What we have to.”
Fariyn nodded. “Sharp, aren’t they. We don’t have to spell out their choices.”
Rane spoke, her voice calm and remote, cool as falling water. “Don’t tease them, Fariyn.”
Tuli stared down at her knees. “Nilis wouldn’t like that dance.”
Teras grinned. “No way.” He looked up at the painted ceiling, not seeing it, his thoughts written on his face. “The traxim, Tuli. They wouldn’t be watching their own.” He turned to gaze at Rane. “Or her, a woman wearing man’s clothes. We could ask.”
“Do it.”
Teras faced Fariyn. Beside him Tuli fixed her eyes on the big woman, striving to read behind the smiling surface. “Are you for Soäreh?” he asked.
“No more than we have to be.” The answer came from behind them. Rane earned a sharp look from Fariyn for her interference. As the twins slued around to stare at her, she said, “Sometimes we have to trust. Isn’t that what we’re asking them to do?” She rubbed her thumb thoughtfully over a section of her jawline. “Besides, Fariyn, I think I know these two.” She smiled as at a pleasing memory. “I stopped at your father’s Tar six years ago at spring planting. I was a meie then. My shieldmate and I helped set out the pot-grown diram and strew the maccla seed. You two were a pair of zhag-born brats wilder than panga in rut. Twins. No, Teras, I won’t say the name, better not even here, but that’s a long way south of here. What happened?” She leaned into the light. “Look close, young Tuli. Remember the night of the Primavar? You were chasing Teras across the green and slammed into me, knocking me sprawling. My face bounced off a crock of cider someone had left sitting beside one of the fest boards. It broke and I got this.” She tapped a short curving scar, a gouge out of her jawline. “I was bleeding like a throat-stuck hauhau, but I grabbed at you.” She chuckled, spread out her left hand, wiggling her thumb to call attention to a ragged scar that circled it near the base. “You nearly bit it off.”
Teras and Tuli scrambled around and scooted closer to her, stared up into jewel-bright green eyes, a dark, shining green like brellim leaves with a faint hint of blue behind the green. Tuli reached up, touched the scar on Rane’s face. “I remember.” She grimaced. “Da whaled us some good. And made us stay in our rooms till the whole fest was over.”
Rane chuckled. “Zhag-born brats.” She shook her head, sighed. “You’re in trouble, twins. Tell us. Mayhap we can help.”
“If this reunion is over?” Fariyn’s voice trembled with laughter, but it brought Teras and Tuli back to the pillows.
“Foarin’s tithe. It started with that …” Teras began.
“No. With Nilis,” Tuli broke in.
He frowned. “I don’t think so. I think it started for Cymbank when the Agli came. And the weather was so bad we had a hard time getting the winter plantings done. Spring was almost worse. Storms. And come harvest everyone was out in the fields trying to save as much of the crops as we could, even the Cymbankers shut down their shops and come out to help and a lot was lost. We know we’re facing a hard winter. Used to be when Hern was still in Oras, a harvest like this, he let most of the tithe go and then this Decsel comes down from Oras from Floarin Doamna-regent saying she wanted the full tithe, same as she’d get from a regular harvest, and the taromate they decided to protest and Da was going to go to Oras.…” He looked down at his hands and in a dull, weary voice told them the rest of it.
“So you’re going after your father.” Fariyn tapped the finials of the chair arms.
“Yah. ’Nd if the guard already has him, we’re going to bust him loose.” When Fariyn raised an eyebrow, he scowled. “We can.”
“I don’t doubt that, yoonglin, no, I don’t. How d’you know about those stinkin beasts?” She jerked a thumb at the ceiling. “Not many here on the Plain would.”
“A tie, he worked in the stables of our Tar. What was our Tar. He’s the one bust us out of the House of Repentance.” He rubbed his hand along his thigh. “We wondered why they were watching so we sneaked up to see.”
“Mmm, they been following us since Oras.” She closed her eyes, seemed to drop into a light doze. Tuli glanced at Teras’s face. The lines of strain in it were softening. He was blinking slowly, having trouble keeping his eyes open. His head trembled a little on his neck. She looked away, saw Fariyn wide awake and watching her.
“Tired?”
Tuli started to shake her head, then glanced at Teras and nodded.
“You had macain?”
Teras stirred. “Yah, we left them by the hedge. They made too much noise.” He dropped his hand heavily on Tuli’s shoulder and lurched up onto his feet. “We can go?”
Tuli got up slowly. She slipped her hand into her twin’s and straightened her shoulders.
Fariyn leaned forward. “Why not stay here and catch some sleep? Mmmm, and some food. You hungry?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “We’ll wake you before dawn and you can get on your way. We’ll fetch your mounts, grain ’em for you.”
At the mention of grain, Teras’s eyes started to glow. He really cared about the affectionate ugly beasts. Tuli smiled to herself, delighting in Fariyn’s tact. His fingers were hot and tight around hers. He was beat and he knew it but he wanted to go on, he wasn’t sure he trusted these people that much, he’d rather depend on just himself and Tuli. Finally, he nodded. “Thanks.”
“Good. Rane, take care of them, see they get something to eat.” She leaned back, sighing, her face relaxing into a smile. “Yoonglings, Maiden grant you find your pa; my blessing with you if we don’t meet before you leave.”
“And blessed be you, cetaj,” Teras said gravely, bowed with a grace and courtesy that surprised Tuli and made her feel like pinching him.
Chuckling, Rane shepherded them from the drogh. Tuli danced ahead of Teras, stretching and yawning, glad to be outside and on her feet again. She swung around and danced backward, giggling and patting her stomach. “Food. Food. I’m hol-ul-ul-llooow.”
CHAPTER VI:
THE QUEST
Serroi pushed away from Hern and walked to the Norit. Behind her she heard his impatient exclamation and before her she heard the muted clamor of the mob as it left the road and started along the hedge for the gap the men of Sadnaji knew quite as well as she did. She grimaced, annoyed at herself, but she didn’t go back to her macai. When she looked over her shoulder, Hern was wiping his sword blade with a bit
of soft cloth, his hands moving with quick impatient darts along the shining steel. And when she looked ahead, the red glow of the torches was coming toward the gap more swiftly than she liked. She rubbed her thumb across her fingers as she gazed down at the body, at the silently screaming head rolled several feet away, remembering the feel of the sprite rupturing at her touch, remembering the heat tearing through her when she dissolved the malchiin, remembering the shivering with fear. Distantly, she heard leather creek as Hern swung into the saddle. “Torches getting close,” he called to her, his voice sharp. She couldn’t blame him for it, what she was doing was foolishness, but she couldn’t bring herself to mount and ride away, not just yet. She knelt and flattened her hands on the headless torso. At first, nothing happened, then she felt a rush of heat tearing up through her body. The flesh beneath her hands burst in blue flame. She leaped back, shook her tingling fingers, watching the Norit’s body burn, watching the eerie blue fire leap across and consume the staring head. She opened her hands, inspected the palms, surprised when she saw the skin smooth, unmarked.
“Serroi, dammit …” Hern came plunging at her; he leaned over, caught her up and bore her off just as a guard rode through the gap, his torch flaring into rags as he tore across the grass after them. With Hern’s arm clamping her against his body, jarred by the jolting gait of his macai, it was hard for her to concentrate, but she fixed her eyes on the guard’s mount, her eyespot throbbing as she reached into the beast.
The macai reared, threw itself into a frenzy of bucking and curvetting that tangled it with the riders following, driving them back, using claws and teeth and the lurch of its heavy body to drive the others back and back to the hedge. Serroi stabbed deeper. The macai screamed, threw itself up so violently it fell over, rolling on its rider. The torch flew from his hand and landed in the hedge; the flames caught in the dead dry twigs, whooshed high and wide, drawing yells of alarm from the men still outside the hedge.
Hern dumped Serroi into her saddle. She spent a moment quieting the beast, nervously aware that the three guards were pulling their mounts back under control. She glanced at Hern, nodded, then pricked her macai into a plunging run that got her halfway across the pasture before she heard the shouts of the pursuing guards. She glanced back. The fire was leaping twice man-height, threatening the trees behind it and the houses beyond them. Poor Hallam, she thought. They’ll be on him like a plague of bloodsuckers.
“Serroi!”
“Huh?”
“How do we get out of here?”
“Gate.” She jabbed a forefinger about two degrees east of Hallam’s dark watchtower. “There.”
The gate came too quickly out of the darkness at her. She risked a glance over her shoulder. The guards were still having some trouble with their macai but coming stubbornly after them, leaving them no time to dismount and open the crude three-pole gate. Damn leeches. She stroked her hand over the smooth thick skin on her macai’s shoulder. Some macain refused to jump. The one she rode was a highbred mountain beast, more of a racer than a stayer. She bent over his neck, patting him, crooning to him, urging him on, straight toward the poles. He gathered himself, shoved off with powerful hind legs, cleared the gate with room to spare. She laughed aloud as they flew over the poles, sheer joy in the flight drowning fear and anger. Hern’s beast soared over behind her, clearing the poles as her mount landed on stride, swung gracefully around and took off down the twisting lane outside the hedge. She slowed him to a smooth canter until Hern caught up with her. Still laughing, she tossed her reins to him. He caught them, dipping and straightening, laughing too, his mind making leaps as easily as his mount. He asked nothing, simply kept her macai moving smoothly beside his while she held onto the saddle ledge, closed her eyes and sought for the three macain following them.
She prodded them, heard shrill cries of crazy rage as the beasts went berserk, heard a wordless shout from Hern as the guards thrown from their saddles yelled, cursed their beasts, cursed the blasted witch they chased. Serroi shivered at the screams of the tormented macain. Hern glanced at her, saw her eyes open, handed back the reins. “Useful talent,” he said, jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Got all three of them?”
Serroi felt her excitement dwindle into self-disgust. “I hate that,” she mumbled, not caring if he heard or not.
As the macain ran on, stride matching stride as if they were used to running in double harness, he reached over, balancing with some care, caught her hand and held it briefly, a gesture of understanding and attempted comfort. For the time he held her, she felt that comfort then the hand was gone and she was colder than before.
They rode along a winding lane barely wide enough to let them move in pair. She knew this road, if such a track deserved the name of road. It ran like a drunken snake along the edge of the Plain, going from Tar to Tar until it cut down from the foothills of the Vachhorns and drove toward Sel-ma-Carth. For several minutes they rode with the flutter of leaves, the call of distant birds, the innocuous night noises, then she heard a macai scream in pain and rage, felt the pain of its beating in her body, flinched at the short whip cuts that drove it along, cuts and blows multiplied three fold until she shuddered under them, gasping and anguished with her guilt and their suffering. She felt the sprite’s husk rolling beneath her fingers. I had to do it, she thought. Had to stop them. But she knew she couldn’t do it again, nor right now, not to these beasts. She reached back after a moment and soothed them, knowing she was acting against her own interests, yet happier with herself when she felt the pain diminish and the beasts settle more contentedly into the run after her.
Hern was watching her, frowning. “You know the ground,” he said. “What now?”
Know the ground, she thought. I wonder. How many years since …? She lifted her head. Over the heavy breathing and thudding pads of the hard-pressed macain, she heard a faint boiling sound—rushing water. CreekSajin. And there’s a ford somewhere along here. Not far, I think. I hope not far. She looked back. The tracks of their macain were like wounds on the pale earth, easy to follow with TheDom high and only a shade past full, the Dancers and the Drover up with him, easy to follow even for those city-bred guards. She could no longer hear sounds of pursuit but she could feel them back there, coming eagerly on; they must know who they followed; the chance to get their hands on Hern would drive them far beyond prudence. She felt a momentary lift of her spirit when she thought of the Sadnaji men busy with the fire. It was too close to their own houses for them to let fanaticism take over for sense; the available trackers were occupied. She blessed the idiot guard who’d charged at them with a lighted torch in his hand. If anything saved them from his fellows, that would, he would, she smiled, to think how chagrinned he would be if he knew how much he’d helped them.
Her macai stumbled, righted itself and ran on. She chewed on her lip. Racers not stayers. All but run out. After listening a moment longer to the ragged breathing of her mount, she pulled him down into an easier canter, nodding with satisfaction as Hern matched her without comment. She began scanning the thick growth of trees on her right, willing them to thin and open on the ford.
After an eternity of anxiety she caught a glimpse of moonlight sparkling on water. “Hern. Ahead right.” She slowed her macai, swung him around and sent him into the water, kicking up crystal glimmers, stirring up the glistening white sand of the bottom. He surged up the far bank, throwing the white sand wide as his claws dug into the slope. At the edge of the brush she pulled him to a stop and waited for Hern. “Uphill.” She pointed. With a last worried look at the stream, she rode into the brush, Hern quiet beside her, both of them holding their weary mounts to a walk, slanting across the rising rolling hills, weaving in and out of broom and brush. As she topped the third hill, she glanced at the ground behind her, smiled with satisfaction. On this hard rocky soil with its cushioning of tough, sun-cured bunchgrass, the macain left few traces of their passage. Over and down, right around a puff-ridden clump of brittle, dying broom, le
ft around a pungent circle of vachachai brush, deep-ribbed leaves like vach antlers, flat, palmate, tougher than vachhide. Up again. On the slope of fourth hill, too close still to the stream for her comfort, she heard shouts from the guards, the distant splash of water as they plunged across the ford. She listened, tense, but relaxed when they began cursing furiously as the tracks they followed disappeared on them. However dangerous they might be on city streets, here in the wild they were out of their element and easier to fool than an infant lappet. Down again, threading with some caution between ripe puff-balls perching on dead broom branches, winding up along a dry streambed, the small clatter of rock against rock, macai claws clicking against rock, back to the quieter pad-pad on dry grass. She heard the guards casting about futilely for the trail, heard the hooting and honking of their macain as they came too close to puff-balls and touched them off. She swallowed a chuckle, knowing the fiery itch that followed a touch of the red dust inside the puffs. They were very vocal over their discomfort, cursing and snarling at each other, vocal too about the hopelessness of their pursuit, yet greed drove them on. Miserable, itching, close to being thoroughly lost, they blundered about the low hills as if they expected to fall over their quarry somehow. A moment later, Serroi did chuckle, very softly, a gentle agitation of the air. Hern heard, lifted a brow, grinned in his turn. She stretched and shifted about in the saddle, more than willing to put an end to this day. They were reasonably safe now unless the guards regained some sense and rode to the nearest Tar to commandeer a tracker or a chini-handler to sniff out their trail. She wrinkled her nose at the thought, shook her head, and began edging around toward the creek.
When he caught sight of the waterflow, Hern scowled. “Riding in circles?”
“Half-circle.” She patted the neck of the macai, then turned him toward the creek’s bank. Over her shoulder she said, “For the benefit of inquisitive noses.”